Uzumaki Naruto: Jinchuuriki of the Cataclysms
by Nwandu225
Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. Rather than pine for respect, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto
1. Debut of Konoha's Resident Demon

**Chapter 1: Debut of Konoha's Resident Demon**

Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Uzumaki Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. He resigns himself to the fate that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be accepted as a human, and that he has no happy ending. Instead, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Konoha wants a demon, oh he'll give them a demon all right. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto

* * *

Author's Note: All right, I just want to get this out of the way so we don't have confusion in this chapter or in later chapters, and state some facts so I don't get flamed.

First, the Kyubi has all of its chakra, there's no Minato split the biju in half and Naruto has only it's yang-chakra nonsense.

Second, Minato and Kushina are not in stasis in Naruto's seal, I thought that was an ass-pull in canon.

Third, in this fanfiction Naruto didn't try and fail the Academy exam three times.

Fourth, And let me make this clear, Naruto is going to be very powerful right off the bat in this story. He has three affinities (Wind, Fire, and Lightning), mastery in a dangerous taijutsu and kenjutsu style as well as fuinjutsu, and he's actually smart. Now, that being said I don't intend to make him a god (or at least right of the bat) and I'll make the fights interesting, but there will be quite a few ROFL-stomps in this story. Naruto in the beginning of this fic is Jonin level or around Kakashi and Guy's tier.

Fifth, There will be some bashing and Naruto will be on Team 7 with Kakashi as a sensei, so you know were that leads to. I won't go overboard but let it be known that I have the utmost contempt for Sakura (pre-shippuden AND shippuden) and I dislike Sasuke's prick attitude (Although, when he's not acting all stuck up he isn't all that bad and I don't mind Sasuke's avenger attitude although I concede it can be a bit much at times). Kakashi will be his normal self, with some changes because Naruto is the strongest Genin in the team instead of Sasuke. I'm still deciding whether I should have Sakura and Sasuke stay the way they are or change, it's up to you guys to convince me of which route before I choose.

Sixth, Naruto is strong, smart, and bad-ass. He will not be pushed around by the Konoha villagers, ninja, his graduating class (in fact he will act viciously towards anything like that) and tsundere characters (he has Sasuke's immunity to getting hit by raging females).

Seventh, this chapter will feature some Naruto fanfiction cliches (Naruto having a crappy childhood, abused, mistreated, yadda, yadda, yadda), but unlike a lot I enjoy them so there in this chapter. I still tried to make it as original as possible.

Eighth, This is fanfiction. I am perfectly within my rights to deviate from canon and I don't want to deal with flames because I changed things.

Ninth, I will be putting up a biography and techniques list page for this fanfiction's Naruto if you want a sneak peak on Naruto's abilities, within the next few days.

That's all for now, enjoy the story and please review. I enjoy constructive criticism because I have evolved in my writing skills thanks to that (you can check my other stories on my profile in order of creation to see what I mean), but no flames or they will be fed to the Kyubi.

* * *

A blond-haired child, most likely no older than five, stood idle in utter shock. The child faced the large metal doors of the Konoha orphanage, his supposed shelter, but even if he tried he couldn't force himself to call the establishment home.

This was nothing unusual when you take a look through his depressing life story. The orphanage was staffed with caretakers who absolutely loathed him, and went out of their way to make his existence as miserable as possible, as if it was some kind of sport.

The caretakers segregated him from the other children and forbade him from interacting with them at all. They encouraged the other orphans to mock and bully him, always made him wait last during meals until everyone had their fill and then fed him the scraps, and punished him for trying to complain.

Even still, despite the injustices, he at least had a place to lay his head and cry his heart out in his quiet prison cell of a bedroom, being segregated had its perks for once, he never had to share a room with others.

Until today that is.

October 10th, unknown to him the Kyubi Festival, or better known to him as his birthday, always seemed to make the caretakers more vicious than usual, and after his second birthday he resolved to hide in his bedroom until the day blew over.

The boy was inside of his room, counting the ceiling tiles for the thousandth time and minding his own business, when his door swung open and he was forcefully dragged out of his room and thrown out of the orphanage. The massive, steel doors creaked shut as he groveled on the ground in pain.

Once he picked himself up, he stood there for while staring at his symbol of undeserved oppression, before turning and walking away without a second glance.

* * *

The blond-haired boy, now six-years old, was cold, wet, hungry, and in pain both physical and mental.

This, again, was nothing new or abnormal for the boy. The civilians of Konoha would either charge him incredibly outrageous prices for cheap foodstuffs, or just outright deny him entry into their shops.

He was cold and wet from the pouring rain, which seemed to represent his depressing mood. He was hungry because he failed in scrounging up any worthwhile to eat from the dumpsters, and he was in pain because said owner of the dumpster proceeded to pound him for coming near his house.

The boy spotted a ramen stand approximately 100 meters in front of him, and his knees went weak from the delicious aroma that permeated from its walls.

Taking a risk, he approached the establishment to get out of the rain and rest for a bit, silently hoping he wasn't thrown out like so many other occasions. Sitting on the stools, he sighed in relief at being able to rest his aching feet.

"What would you like, kiddo?" asked a middle-aged man, looking at him in clear recognition of his identity.

"Is… is it ok if I just sit here for a bit? Until the storm breaks." asked the young blonde in apprehension, he hoped the man wouldn't throw him out for not ordering anything.

"You sure you don't want anything?" asked the man, concerned because the boy looked like he was going to collapse from malnutrition.

"Yeah, I'm not really hungry." said the boy, but the loud rumbling of his stomach betrayed his intentions, and he looked at his feet in embarrassment.

"Doesn't seem like it to me. You wait right there kid, I'll get you something to eat." said the man.

"I don't have any money." muttered the blonde, trying to keep monotone. He learned early on that people would use any vulnerability that he showed against him.

"That's quite alright. It's on the house." replied the man. It went against good business sense to give away free food, but looking at the small blonde who seemed to have never smiled a day in his life and clearly hasn't eaten in a long while, made him throw reason to the wind.

The hesitant smile on the young boy's face, although hidden by his lowered head confirmed the his decision as being the right one. A few minutes later, a ten year old girl set down a piping hot bowl of ramen in front of him, the smell of the food making him salivate uncontrollably.

"Hi there, my name is Ayame. What's yours?" asked the girl with a smile.

The blonde looked up at the girl with a confused expression, he wasn't used to others trying to strike up a polite conversation with an introduction.

"Uzumaki… Naruto." answered the boy, warily.

"Nice to meet you, Naruto-kun." said Ayame.

* * *

Seven year old Uzumaki Naruto was lying in hospital bed, recovering from the brutal beating he had been subjected to a little more than an hour ago.

He was just minding his own business, when he had the misfortune of walking past a bar where a group of drunken civilians had just exited. The young Uzumaki and the group of grown men exchanged glances for a second, before the boy bolted for safety with the men right on his heels.

Now Naruto was quite fast for age, he probably could outrun most of the kids in the village, but unfortunately a grown man's running stride and physical development trumped his natural ability and they caught up to him soon enough.

Needless to say, the end result was not pretty.

To compound the injustice, the ANBU who was assigned to watch him to make sure he didn't get into trouble, waited until the last second to save him. A half-minute later, and the boy would've been dead.

With a **Shunshin** (Body Flicker), the elite ninja unceremoniously dumped him into a hospital cot and disappeared, leaving him at the mercy of whichever doctor came to treat him, assuming they did.

A few minutes later, a nurse with an angry and hateful expression on her face approached the boy, holding a syringe in her hand.

Her face contorted into a devious smirk as she injected the syringe's contents into his arm, certain that the demon who took her husband and children from her would finally perish.

As she left the room, the young Uzumaki already began to burn with a fever, his body desperately trying to fight off the foreign substance. Coupled with his grievous injuries, he should have been too weak to fight off the poison, but once again the boy proved that he didn't conform to any expectation.

With a combination of advanced healing, willpower, and insane luck he pulled through, but unfortunately the blonde would only to revive back into hell.

* * *

Eight year old Naruto Uzumaki was shivering in his small apartment. He was the only one who lived in the building, as no one would live in the same building as the demon.

It was the middle of winter, and Konoha, although normally having a warm climate, was hit hard with a blizzard, making its temperature plunge into all time lows.

His apartment had no heating and to make it worse all of his apartment's windows were shattered, thanks to some rock-throwing jerk. He would have moved to the other apartments, but each one had at least one broken window due to either robbery or neglect.

The boy shivered uncontrollably, thinking of just what to do to get warm when he felt a tug at the back of his head, like someone was trying to pull him inside his consciousness.

Startled at first, the boy tried to fight back with his force of will, but after that proved to be a futile endeavor, the Uzumaki gave up and decided to see what this was about.

Suddenly, Naruto was standing, shin-deep in water, inside of a massive chamber. Before him stood an enormous cage with a paper tag that had the kanji for seal printed on it. Sitting behind those bars, the young Uzumaki laid eyes on the most powerful of the biju for the first time.

The great beast was… was… MASSIVE.

The biju was roughly the same size of the Hokage Monument, and its slitted red eyes glowed with a wrath that made anything else pale in comparison.

The beast's lower body was of the same structure as a normal fox, but his torso and arms were comparable to that of a muscular human, and its hands had opposable thumbs. Garbed in reddish-orange fur, nine massive tails swayed from its rear inside of the cage.

"W-w-what…. w-w-who are y-you?" asked Naruto, in mixture of fear and awe.

The demon fox pressed its snout as close to the bars of his cage as possible to get a better look at his container.

Yellow hair… check.

Blue eyes… check.

Potent chakra… check.

" _ **Yep. He's resembling my former jinchuriki and that Yondaime bastard more and more with every passing moment."**_ thought the biju with a bit of annoyance.

" **Quit your stammering gaki. I am the Kyubi, the nine-tailed demon fox that laid waste to Konoha eleven years ago. Now fear my name and bask in the glory that you have been blessed with my power, Mwahahaha!"** gloated the great beast.

Seemingly forgetting his fear, Naruto stood deadpanned for a few moments before replying, "I've never heard of you."

Upon hearing that, the Kyubi instantly charged the boy, but because of the damned cage, all he managed to accomplish was a loud noise and a slight budge of his imprisonment before it shifted back into place.

To at least give some credit to the demon fox, the force of the impact created powerful winds that sent the young Uzumaki tumbling a few feet. The boy rolled backwards for a few seconds, before sliding on the ground like a ragdoll.

"OWW!" whined Naruto.

" **YOU WANNA SAY THAT AGAIN, GAKI?!"** asked the Kyubi, angrily.

"I'm sorry, but I've really never heard of you before." said Naruto, rubbing his sore back.

The Kyubi paused for a second, before silently fuming in its mind.

" _ **That damned old fart! He must have passed a law that forbids those who remember my attack on the village from telling the younger generations. Still, why doesn't Naruto at least know about me, or the fact that I am inside of him?"**_ thought the Kyubi.

"Um… Kyubi? Are you still there?" asked Naruto.

" _ **Well, it looks like I'll have to break the truth to him. In the end, it works out for me, more anger means me having more influence on him and then maybe I can get out of this seal."**_ thought the Kyubi with a smirk.

" **Naruto. Would you like to know of your parents and why the people of Konoha hate you?"** asked the Kyubi, trying to hide the smug look on his face. All he needed was the kid to bite, and the steps to his freedom would assured.

"What! You know my parents?! You know why I'm hated?! Tell me! TELL ME!" yelled Naruto.

" **Alright, hold your horses. First off, do you know what a jinchuriki is?"** asked the Kyubi.

"Jinchuriki?" asked Naruto, not understanding in the least.

" **I'll take that as a no. To explain, jinchuriki means 'power of human sacrifice'. The term came into being when Hashirama Senju, the Shodai (First) Hokage, went about defeating and collecting my brethren and I, and handing us out as spoils of war to the other major shinobi villages. To control us, they created a method…"** began the Kyubi, remembering the memories with distaste.

"What method?" asked Naruto, intrigued by the tale.

" **The shinobi sealed us within their own using fuinjutsu, so they could control our powerful combat abilities without running the risk with letting us roam free."** answered the Kyubi.

"Why?" asked Naruto, not understanding the point of it all.

" **What can I say? Humanity is a species of war-mongers and murderers. They seek ways to impose superiority on others by finding or making bigger weapons to use on themselves. Unfortunately, we biju were those bigger weapons."** said the Kyubi with barely repressed hatred.

"Ok… but what does that have to do with me?" asked Naruto.

The Kyubi sighed, before trying to explain.

" **During the period that humans had yet to perfect their method to seal us within themselves, my brethren and I wreaked havoc and devastation upon the shinobi and their pathetic villages. We killed their families. We torched their homes. We turned life into hell. Because of this, the humans carried anger and resentment towards us, and over the years they began to see the jinchuriki, not as heroes for holding the bijus at bay, but as the demons that are sealed within them."** explained the Kyubi.

"What?" asked Naruto, beginning to connect the dots.

" **Konoha's history with the biju, more specifically me, isn't a pleasant one. I attacked Konoha twice, both times under the control of the Mangekyo Sharingan, and nearly destroyed the village in the process. In the second attempt, I killed a tenth of Konoha's population and at the head of the casualties list was the Yondaime and his wife, who sacrificed their lives to seal me once again… into you."** continued the Kyubi.

"No… no… no…" repeated Naruto, tears dripping from his eyes.

" **The Yondaime (Fourth) Hokage, Namikaze Minato, as much as I hate him for denying me my freedom, was a respectable man. My chakra is so powerful that he could only seal me within a newborn baby with undeveloped chakra coils. But his conscience would never allow him to ask someone to make a sacrifice that he himself couldn't do. His wife, Uzumaki Kushina, had just given birth to her firstborn, you, but unfortunately had died due to me being released by the rogue Uchiha, after already being weakened by said childbirth. Grieving, the man sacrificed himself using the Death Reaper seal to seal me within you, leaving Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto without parents and in the middle of Konoha's greatest tragedy."** finished the Kyubi.

Naruto couldn't even say anything, he could only fall on his knees while tears flowed uncontrollably from his eyes.

" _Jiji… no... the Sandaime (Third) lied to me... he lied to me all my fucking life! He always told me that he never knew my parents and never explained why the villagers hated me! My father, my hero, the Fourth Hokage, doomed me to a fate worse than death! The villagers… why can't they see me as a normal human being! I am an eight year old boy, not a 100 foot tall demon!"_ thought Naruto in anguish.

"So that's why. The stares, the negligence, the beatings, the death threats… it's all because they think I'm you, huh?" asked Naruto, in an emotionless whisper.

" **Yes, even though the Sandaime passed a law that forbids those from speaking about me to try and let you and your generation grow up without the knowledge of the tragedy, that law didn't stop them from making your life hell and spreading their prejudice to their children, even if the kids themselves didn't know the reason. For all jinchuriki, this is how they live… as outcasts."** growled the Kyubi.

"I… I see, well-" began Naruto with his head lowered, before he was interrupted.

" **But we don't have to let that stop us."** said the Kyubi, with a glint in his eye.

"What do you mean?" asked Naruto, whipping his head up to face the Kyubi. The boy was ready to give up at this point, all the hatred he endured wasn't in position to disappear as it had been entrenched in the villagers' minds long before he was born.

" **Gaki, whether we like it or not we're stuck together for now, and that means the whole world is against us. But that shouldn't matter to us. If you can't change the opinions of the trash who live in this village, then they aren't worth the effort. Screw them, I say. You should live your life like you're sticking a middle finger to their sorry asses. They want to kill you? Get stronger so no one can touch you. They want you to fail? Destroy every obstacle in your path. They want to exile you? Hehehe, Naruto you're the heir of the Namikaze** _ **and**_ **Uzumaki clans, the amount of capital that you've inherited would be enough to ruin Konoha financially should you decide to leave. They want to deny you your inheritance? Become a Jonin, and the Konoha council will be legally obligated to give it to you. Naruto, what I want for you more than anything is for you to live for yourself. It doesn't matter what people think of you. You are your own man, gaki. You should live your life the way you want and make them** _ **regret**_ **ever hurting you. Now, are we gonna do this or not... partner?"** asked the Kyubi, with a devious smirk.

"You want to be partners… with me?" asked Naruto, almost expecting the Kyubi to turn around and betray him like all the others.

But then again, no one had helped him as much as the demon fox. The Kyubi had answered two questions that he would have given anything to figure out, why he was hated and the identity of his parents. Although the story with his parents was bittersweet at best.

" **Of course, like me you know what it means to suffer. For people to only try to take advantage of you, and to be caged though it's a bit more figurative for you than me. So what do you say?"** said the Kyubi.

To prove his point, the biju pressed his fist against the cage waiting for the boy to cement their brotherhood.

"I'm done letting the hatred and abuse of the village get me down. Screw them, I'll soon show them who they're messing with. No more chasing after that foolish position of Hokage to gain the recognition of those hypocrites. Instead, my goal will be to end the oppression against the jinchuriki. I'm going to make it so that the jinchuriki of the present and the future will be revered, honored, and hailed as the heroes that they should be. Even if I have to destroy this world to accomplish it." said Naruto, before raising his fist as well and bumping it with the Kyubi's.

And with that, the most powerful duo in history was born.

" **Ok kit, training will start tomorrow. There's no turning back now, so prepare yourself to go through hell and back to gain the power that you crave."** said the Kyubi with a warning tone.

The young Uzumaki simply nodded his head before closing his eyes and entering some kind of concentration trance.

After a few seconds had passed, Naruto broke the silence.

"Hey Kyubi…" began the blonde.

" **Yeah?"** answered the demon fox.

Almost immediately after the demon fox spoke, the biju froze in stunned disbelief as the oppressive cage that held it hostage for eight long years _disappeared_.

After the cage was gone, the leaky sewer landscape seemed to shimmer and morph until it became a large and wide open expanse.

The Kyubi now stood on a massive grassy field, that seemed to extend for miles upon miles. There was a large forest to the east that led into a horizon filled with mountains. On the west, the ground elevated for hundreds of meters until it became a rocky-ledge. The sky which used to be a bleary grey, was now a bright cerulean-blue with white wispy clouds, a roaring yellow sun, and an expansive rainbow.

The demon fox walked over to the edge of the cliff-side and looked down in amazement at the Uzumaki's imaginative genius.

A massive waterfall billowed downwards, pooling into a sizeable lake that thinned out into a long river which extended into the horizon. A multitude of animal species grazed on the grass that grew on the banks of the water formation.

Finally, a necklace with a paper tag that had the kanji for seal printed on it appeared on the Kyubi's neck, signifying the end of Naruto's landscaping.

" **Oi, kit. What is all this?"** asked the Kyubi in amazement. It had been so long since the biju had seen the open world, even if wasn't complete reality.

"This is my thanks, Kyubi-sensei. Unfortunately, I don't know how to undo the seal that tethers you to me, but I still want you to be comfortable. I know I'd hate to be stuck inside of a cage. You are the first to have truly given me hope for the future. Pretty ironic that humanity sees you as a demon when you're one of the only ones to show me kindness." answered Naruto with a wide grin, something he hadn't done since he created a bond with the Ichirakus.

The Kyubi looked at the boy with utter disbelief, all of his notions towards humans where they were nothing but self-serving maggots who never did anything worthwhile without expecting something in return were shattered by this child.

The two had already made an agreement to work together, so for the boy to do this for him was unnecessary.

Yet he still did it. And it made him feel guilty for trying to manipulate the boy into gaining his freedom.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow for training sensei. I'm going to get some sleep, today has been quite the revelation." said Naruto.

Before the Uzumaki could exit the mindscape, a large furry tail wrapped around him.

" **Wait, kit."** said the Kyubi.

"Hai Kyubi-sensei?" asked Naruto.

" **Kurama."** said the biju.

"What?" asked Naruto, in confusion.

" **My real name is Kurama. 'Kyubi' is only a title that the humans gave me because none of them have been worthy to know my true name, well except you."** explained Kurama.

"Ok then, it's very nice to know more about you, Kurama-sensei." said Naruto with a smile, before finally exiting the mindscape.

Kurama stared at the space that the Uzumaki had inhabited a second ago before looking up to the sky with a sigh.

" _ **Rikudo-jiji, is this what you meant all those centuries ago?"**_ thought the Kyubi, with an understanding expression.

The biju shook his head, before moving along to explore his new accommodations.

* * *

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, had survived through three shinobi world wars and accomplished monumental feats. He trained a team of genin who later turned into the _Densetsu no Sannin_ (Three Legendary Ninja), a trio of Kage level ninja, had mastered all five nature transformations and all of Konoha's jutsu, earning him the moniker _Kami no Shinobi_ (God of Shinobi) and the Professor.

However, the man was facing an enemy that no Hokage in the past had trumped before.

Paperwork.

" _I will beat you one day, foul beast!"_ thought the elderly Hokage, angrily.

Just as the man was about to make headway, his secretary had brought in another large stack of documents that needed to read over and approved by the end of the week, much to his chagrin.

" _But that day isn't today."_ thought the man in defeat, comical tears streaming down his face.

"Oh, speaking of which Hokage-sama, the Genin team placements for this year's Academy graduates has been finalized, and is at the top of the pile of documents. If you could, please fill that out first and get it to Iruka-san by tomorrow." said the secretary, giving the Hokage a look of sympathy before she headed out.

Grumbling, Hiruzen dropped his pen and read over the document.

Going through the list of Academy graduates in order of placement, he finally reached the object of his interest, Uzumaki Naruto.

Thinking of the boy, Hiruzen could only sigh in sadness. The two used to be so close, even seeing the Uzumaki as a second grandson.

But around the time Naruto was eight, he suddenly became distant. His visits became fewer and shorter in length, only coming to see him to receive his monthly stipend allotted to orphans.

What hurt the most however was when Naruto stopped calling him 'Jiji' and now only referred to him as Hokage-sama.

Now for most, this would be a moment of joy, but for Hiruzen it was troubling. The man had tried several times to strike up a conversation with the lad to find out the problem, but all he received was a glare mixed with anger and betrayal, before the Uzumaki brushed him off.

The boy's budding distrust of him was compounded by the sabotage that he suffered in the Academy. The abuse of the civilians were one thing, his jurisdiction didn't extend far into the affair of the villagers, but the Academy was supposed to be under his direct control.

Alas, it wasn't as straightforward as it sounded. There were very few shinobi who were qualified and/or willing to teach, and even fewer who didn't have a jaded view against Naruto. Constantly replacing Academy teachers because they disliked Naruto wouldn't solve the problem and would also get him in hot water with the council because he was showing favoritism.

The council was another problem that he had no idea how to combat.

A shinobi village, theoretically, was a military dictatorship under the Hokage, his word was _supposed_ to be law. And in most, if not all of the other shinobi villages, there was no such thing as a civilian side of the council.

However, the Nidaime Hokage for some reason made a series of laws to restrict the powers of future Hokage in case they began to abuse their power to the detriment of the village. He also created the civilian council to give the normal villagers more say in how Konoha was run, especially in matters concerning them.

Honestly, Hiruzen spent many sleepless nights wondering what the fuck Tobirama was smoking when he thought of these ideas.

Getting back to his original thoughts, Sarutobi, even though he was saddened by the distant behavior, was happy that he passed the Academy exam, even if he was the dead last.

Now that he was a shinobi, he could finally begin to correct some of the wrongs in the boy's life, and hopefully reconnect with the young Uzumaki.

* * *

A young man clad in black and red dashed through the shadows of one house to another. Nobody noticed anything, because the figure was moving way too fast. The intention of said person. If identified, there would be massive repercussions against him, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with the infuriating Konoha council. The empty streets of the village of Konohagakure, he refused to ever call this hellish shithole on Earth his home, was working well for his plans. Finally in a dark, abandoned alley, the young man reached his destination.

Inside of a large, emptied out dumpster that was bolted to the floor, there was a bunker entrance, hidden and silenced by fuinjutsu seals that the person now released. Oh, the wonders of fuinjutsu. Once he jumped inside the hole, he closed the lid and re-applied the seals, allowing the entrance to fade into obscurity once more.

The young man activated some lanterns, powered by fuinjutsu, illuminating the bunker and the revealing the man's features. Standing at 5ft 4in, he was a little bit small for a grown man. But, that's because he's not a man, but a boy, about to enter teenagehood. In that case, he was quite well-developed for someone his age. Throwing his hooded trenchcoat into a nearby couch, the pre-teen revealed a lean and sinewy, but no less powerful musculature.

The boy wore a black, skin-tight, sleeveless muscle-shirt, red and black ANBU combat pants, black and red forearm guards, black finger-less combat gloves with a metal back-plate, and black shinobi sandals. Strapped to his back were two sheathed dual-wield katanas. On his left shoulder there was a white tattoo that printed the kanji symbol for Cataclysm. At the top of his head, spiky blond hair was revealed, along with three whisker-like birthmarks on his cheeks.

The pre-teen walked to the large, curved table in the center of the bunker and undid a sealing scroll that he removed from one of the pockets on his pants, releasing its contents. Hundreds of kunai and shuriken, four windmill shuriken, a chain sickle, a container full of senbon, three katanas, and several daggers fell out of the scroll, before being sorted and organized in a various shelves. Observing the bunker with attention to detail, you could see there dozens of shelves in various locations, each with a sign that designated what it held.

One shelf had a sign that said Wind, the one to the left of it stated Fire, the one to the right said Lightning, another said Taijutsu, and going down line you saw, Non-elemental Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Bukijutsu, Kenjutsu, Fuinjutsu, Geography, Politics/Clans, Wilderness Survival, Tactics and Strategy, Medical, etc. As expected, all of the shelves were filled with multitudes of scrolls. Seriously, the amount of scrolls that the secret vaults and clans of Konoha leave in the trash when they re-copy the info on newer scrolls was insane. The blonde shook his head at the wastefulness but then smirked because it worked to his satisfaction, information was life but if they didn't want them he would gladly help himself.

In one corner of the bunker, there was a safe. The boy walked over to the metal contraption and entered a long and complicated password, before it opened. Taking a wad of cash out of another of his pants' pockets, he threw it in the safe, before closing it once more, depriving the world the knowledge of its contents.

" _ **Good haul, kit. Those Chunin Exams are such a convenient means of getting new supplies."**_ complimented a demonic voice.

" _Thanks, Kurama-sensei. And it makes me happier that Konoha has been deprived of the chance to gain these valuable items."_ mentally replied the pre-teen.

With all that taken care of, the blonde stretched and yawned before retiring himself to his bedroom. His bedroom consisted of a queen-size bed, a desk with an arm-chair, a small leather couch, a dresser with a mirror, a shelf that seemed to be a personal library of some sorts, a walk-in closet, and the bathroom was right before the entrance of the bedroom. Cozy and comfortable but not too fancy. Of course all of these items were purchased under a transformation Henge or retrieved from the trash and fixed up.

Nobody, not even the Hokage, knew of the hideout. While it was deep underground and received no natural light, it was safe. The only place safe for him in this goddamn village, least of all his "official" residence. Oh well, if anyone needed him, a shadow clone was sleeping inside his apartment, pretending to be him. It was really an absolute stroke of luck that he found that jutsu, when he was observing Konoha's Genin tests on Kurama's advice.

Three-years ago, when he was nine, he watched a jonin with gravity-defying silver hair and a black face-mask, not that he could criticize because of his hairstyle, testing a group of Genin hopefuls. When the man utilized the jutsu, he thought that it was the normal **Bunshin** (Clone) that was taught at the Academy, but he quickly saw during the test that they were real-life clones that could fight. Once he escaped to his bunker, he began to train the jutsu.

The **Kage Bunshin** (Shadow Clone) jutsu quickly became one of his favorite, most versatile, and most used jutsus. He even made several variants for it, either by inspiration, practice, and application, or by accident. There were so many advantages to the jutsu. First, he could overwhelm an opponent by striking their blind spots, or just attacking furiously at different angles. Second, when training some combination taijutsu techniques, he learned that the memories of his clones, once dispelled, transferred to him. This had helped him immensely. With his insane chakra levels, he could spam hundreds of clones, and receives hundreds of times, if not thousands of times more experience in training a single technique once than other people.

Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto had learned early in life that the world was against him, and would do everything in its power to create obstacles to slow him down. There only three people that he could think of that never had any malicious intent towards him, the Ichirakus and this shy Hyuga girl from the Academy. He couldn't count how many times he had to visit the hospital because of the periodic beatings he received from the civilians. All of the abuse and negligence he suffered during his early childhood had shattered all of his dreams and aspirations to be acknowledged by others as one of them and to become Hokage.

He remembered vividly that fateful day when he was eight years old, the day he met Kurama-sensei and realized that there was nothing he could ever do that would change the opinion of others, and therefore he stopped trying. Once the boy had cemented his partnership with the titanic demon fox, he quickly delved into a near-suicidal training regime to become stronger, the most powerful shinobi that this world had ever seen.

The past four years had been quite an adventure for the young Uzumaki. The boy, determined to never let the villagers push him around again, trained himself into the ground both day and night without a single day's break. The near-instant regeneration that he gained from Kurama being sealed inside of him made sure that he didn't permanently damage himself, and that he would only come out of his injuries stronger than before.

The pre-teen had an advantage that most training-savvy shinobi would drool at, a private virtual reality mindscape in which he could utilize his imagination to create any training equipment or environment he could possibly desire. Free from those who would spy on him to learn his secrets or those who would try to discourage him at every turn. Kurama quickly laid out all of the areas in the shinobi arts that he needed to work on, which was just about everything thanks to the sabotage in the Academy, and Naruto took to it like fish in water.

Naruto's physical condition in the beginning was good in the stamina department, average in the dexterity (agility and flexibility) and speed areas, and pathetic in strength and durability. Unfortunately, this was caused once again by the villagers constantly overcharging Naruto on even the most basic of food, leaving the boy only able to buy cup ramen because it was cheap and in bulk, or sabotage at the Academy. This left him terribly malnourished and if it weren't for Kurama's chakra, Naruto would have keeled over from starvation years ago.

Using his incredible stealth abilities gained from his pranking experience, Naruto frequently slipped out of Konoha to hunt for game and gather edible plants and berries. Making sure to never disappear for too long so he wouldn't be missed, the boy was soon able to gain the necessary calories to sustain him during his training.

Thanks to his improved diet, on Kurama's orders, the insane physical conditioning exercises that he did, and the greater allocation of Kurama's chakra to developing his body rather than sustaining him did miracles for his figure. The Uzumaki daily completed feats such as running scores of miles with boulders tied to his waist, while Kurama chucked projectiles at him. Arms, legs, and core exercises with massive amounts of weights over burning beds of coal, ponds full of crocodiles, and pits full of earthen spikes to discourage failure. Or completing obstacle courses while wearing weighted training clothes with lethal traps waiting at every corner.

The next thing Naruto had to work meticulously on was his taijutsu and bukijutsu skills. Once again, the bigoted instructors sabotaged him by teaching him incorrect forms which threw his body off balance, left him wide open to counter attacks, or screwed up his aim with throwing weapons.

Kurama decided to start from scratch in taijutsu and taught the young Uzumaki his own tailor-brand taijutsu form, the _Kitsune-ken Taijutsu_ (Fox-fist Style Hand-to-Hand Combat). The taijutsu form was very aggressive and relied on overwhelming the opponent with unpredictable acrobatic maneuvers and speed. Spear-hand jabs, Claw swipes, Palm-thrusts and grabs and Kicks formed the majority of the katas. The style was also similar to the Inuzuka taijutsu form in the sense that Naruto could move on all-fours if he needed an extra-boost of speed and could augment his body with chakra, either his own or Kurama's, to give him animal-like instincts, sensory abilities, and reflexes.

During Naruto's bukijutsu training to fix the incorrect throwing positions that were taught to him in the Academy, Kurama saw fit to teach the boy kenjutsu because the Uzumaki were masters in the art along with fuinjutsu and it would be useful against an opponent he couldn't touch directly or for the longer reach. Naruto was ecstatic to learn the Uzumaki style of kenjutsu from Kurama because he felt connected to his ancestors, even if the clan had been destroyed and scattered to the winds.

Naruto's biggest problem in training was chakra control, which hampered his ability to use ninjutsu. Kurama explained to the boy early on that because of their chakras continually mixing with each other over the years, it gave him an insanely massive chakra pool even bigger than most Jonin, but the cost was initially terrible chakra control. Not letting that stop him however, Naruto worked hard at it to be able to reign in control of his chakra.

The boy first started with the leaf concentration skill, and once he was able to make it hover steadily over his head and rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise for five minutes, he trained to be able to control and manipulate a leaf on each of his fingertips like he did on his forehead.

After accomplishing that, Naruto moved on to the tree climbing technique. Kurama wouldn't accept the skill mastered unless Naruto could fight on a tree for several hours without thinking about it. After the boy gained the ability to walk up and down the tree or upside down on the branches without any prior momentum from running, he practiced his taijutsu and kenjutsu katas on the tree until the hours flew by without him noticing. Thanks to all his practice in chakra control, Naruto was able to perform the **Kawarimi** (Substitution) and **Henge** (Transformation) jutsus seal-less with ease. However, mastery of the **Bunshin** (Clone) jutsu still alluded him.

That was soon fixed however with his discovery of the **Kage Bunshin** (Shadow Clone) jutsu, upon seeing it at that Genin bell test. And the technique helped the boy push his training to new heights.

Knowledgeable of the ability to receive memories and experience from dispelled clones, Naruto used scores of **Kage Bunshin** to master the water walking technique. The chakra control techniques also became easier and easier for Naruto, because the advanced exercises were leaning more on building up chakra pools and mastering using high amounts of chakra for longer periods of time rather than being able reduce the waste of chakra in ninjutsu like in the leaf concentration and tree walking exercises. Once he had mastered water-walking, his newly mastered chakra reserves were Kage level, but that didn't make the young Uzumaki complacent, he just kept pushing the boundaries.

Naruto also worked on being able to recognize and dispel Genjutsu. Kurama told Naruto flatly that it was almost impossible for jinchuriki to use normal Genjutsu because of their enormous chakra reserves and not proficient enough control. This wasn't a disappointment to Naruto because he had no intentions of going down the path of a Genjutsu specialist. Once the boy mastered the ability to flush his chakra to expel opposing genjutsu and Kurama's special technique of condensing your chakra flow to not allow genjutsu to stick to your coils, Naruto moved on to the more practical disciplines.

Unlike all the other ninja disciplines that Naruto had to struggle and persevere in to correct his flaws, Naruto was a prodigy in fuinjutsu just like his parents and the Uzumaki clan. Raiding the library under a **Henge** , and the scroll trash-piles of the various clans of Konoha, Naruto learned as much as he could about the dying art. He practiced his calligraphy and penmanship to an acceptable point before moving on.

Naruto read several textbooks on fuinjutsu theory and its practical uses, some of them written by his father. After that, the budding fuinjutsu practitioner began to create simple seals like storage scrolls, enhancement seals, and weight seals, before he moved on to explosive tags, barrier seals, gravity seals, chakra storage seals, chakra suppression seals, and custom designed seals.

Besides fuinjutsu in which Naruto continued to hone and think of new ideas for seals, Naruto more or less mastered his _Kitsune-ken_ taijutsu form, bukijutsu skills and Uzumaki kenjutsu form, academy ninjutsu and the **Kage Bunshin** , and genjutsu resistance abilities within two years. Once the blonde reached his eleventh birthday, he was ready to learn nature and shape manipulation.

Another awesome advantage about having a biju sealed in your gut was that since they were essentially giant masses of chakra, they could read the chakra of living things. That meant Kurama could determine his chakra affinities without using chakra paper, and after enough practice that ability would be his too.

Naruto was pleasantly surprised when Kurama told him that he had three chakra affinities but understood with the tailed beast's explanation. Kurama, his father, and his mother all had dominant Wind affinities, giving him a very powerful Wind nature as his primary chakra affinity. Kurama's chakra which continuously mixed with Naruto's, gave the Uzumaki the biju's other affinity, fire, as a secondary. Finally, his father had a strong secondary lightning affinity which influenced his chakra enough to leave its impact as a tertiary chakra nature.

While most people would be overwhelmed by having to train three different chakra natures, that was never a problem for Naruto as long as he had shadow clones. Dispatching three groups of 1000 shadow clones, he was able to get 20 years of chakra nature training for each group of shadow clones with only a week's worth of actual training.

For his Wind nature training, Naruto worked on cutting a leaf by sharpening his chakra as much as possible to create a blade. Once that was finished, he moved on to splitting the waterflow of a river with his wind chakra. After that, it was to accomplish the same thing but on a massive waterfall. Then when that was mastered, Naruto tried to split a rock using his wind chakra before Kurama dubbed him ready to learn Wind Release ninjutsu.

For his Fire nature training, the Uzumaki tried to augment the flames from a candle using his chakra. Once he could make the flame expand and contract as much as and as fast as he pleased, he moved on to trying to create a spark while only using his chakra and then igniting a leaf. When he accomplished that, Naruto worked on maintaining an orb of flame in his hands, constantly increasing the size and the length of time when the task became too easy before he was ready to move on to learning Fire Release ninjutsu.

For his Lightning nature training, Naruto began by working to light up his body like a blue flashlight using his chakra. Once he did that, then he took some metal wire and streamed his chakra through it to work on his power output. Then, he used his chakra to create strings of lightning attached to his fingers and slowly moved them apart, improving his control and maintenance of lightning chakra before he could move on to learning Lightning Release ninjutsu.

After a month of elemental nature training, Naruto was eager for elemental jutsus. However, even with all of his acquiring of scrolls and books on the shinobi disciplines, getting scrolls on elemental jutsu was difficult. Also, since Kurama was a biju, he wasn't the best person to ask about using hand-seal techniques when he just destroyed people with his tails, claws, or chakra blasts. He could only scrounge up a couple C-Rank and below elemental techniques, for some reason Konoha stored those ones well even though anything else was practically fair game for anyone smart enough to look for it. Never letting any obstacle get to him though, the boy rationed that if he couldn't learn jutsu, he'd make his own.

Using his recently-acquired knowledge on hand-seals, jutsu theory, chakra molding, elemental natures, and the few elemental jutsus he had in his possession, Naruto tried to create his own jutsu by building off of what someone would expect an elemental jutsu to do.

If it was Wind, it should either cut or forcefully buffet.

If it was Fire, it should burn and suffocate.

If it was Lightning, it should shock and stun.

And with that in mind and the support of thousands of clones, Naruto got to it. For the first couple of months it was slow going, having trouble molding the chakra into the forms that he wished. But eventually he got the hang of it and things began to speed up. A year had produced dozens of effective jutsu in all three of his chakra natures that would serve him well. But the best thing was that these were _his_ jutsu, and he had all rights to them.

In the first year of his training, Naruto would have to cram in all of his training after a terrible day at the Academy. But once he learnt the **Kage Bunshin** , he simply sent a shadow clone in his stead. During all of this, Naruto made sure to cover his tracks and make sure that no one knew of his activities. He needed to be strong enough and a legally-recognized shinobi, so he couldn't be hampered by the civilian council. Unfortunately, that meant hiding his true abilities and acting like an idiot prankster in public and the Academy.

It was a tough pill to swallow, but the dream of one day becoming a Genin and being able to show off and rub it in all of their faces that he pulled the wool over the village's eyes made it worth it. He consistently made sure that he scored dead last every year to not draw attention to himself, even though that by the time he was ten, he could been the Rookie of Year by far and have wiped the floor with even his Chunin-ranked Academy instructors.

Thankfully that was all over now. He had passed the Academy exam even with all of the instructors attempts at failing him, well except for Iruka. The scar-faced chunin didn't go out of his way to torment him. Iruka didn't like the boy no doubt, but he was professional enough to at least teach Naruto fairly, and that gained him some semblance of respect from the Uzumaki. Regardless, that was over now and he was ready to make his true self known to Konoha, and then the shinobi world.

Watch out Konoha, you wanted a demon, well you've got yourself a demon.


	2. Reprisals and Retribution

**Chapter 2: Reprisals and Retribution**

Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Uzumaki Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. He resigns himself to the fate that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be accepted as a human, and that he has no happy ending. Instead, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Konoha wants a demon, oh he'll give them a demon all right. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto

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Author's Note: Hello readers, here's Chapter 2. My update schedule will probably be every 1-2 weeks, although I will try my hardest to post weekly. Enjoy and GIVE ME REVIEWS! If you guys review more, I'll post chapters faster (That's right, I bribed you. What are you gonna do about it?).

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Bright, cerulean-blue eyes slowly widened to the loud beeping of an alarm clock. Groggily rising from the bed, the blonde Uzumaki rubbed his eyes before forming a hand-seal to deactivate said bedroom accessory.

Oh, the wonders of fuinjutsu.

" _Oi, Kurama! Rise and shine, buddy!"_ yelled Naruto, mentally.

" **Ugh. Five more minutes, Rikudo-jiji."** groaned Kurama, rolling in his sleep.

Naruto shook his head in slight laughter, his sensei was not a morning person for sure. However, there was nothing that could stop him from getting up today.

He had finally did it. He had passed the Academy exam and now was a full-fledged shinobi, en route to being given a team.

Well, technically he wasn't a Genin yet, he still had to pass whatever test his sensei gave his team. But, he was in no danger from losing to 90% of the Jonin in the village. The only people in Konoha who could pose a threat to him now were the Hokage, Hatake Kakashi, Maito Gai, and maybe Sarutobi Asuma.

But all bets were off once he used Kurama's chakra.

Moving from that train of thought, he tried to predict what his team would be like. After 'borrowing' that secret files of the Academy when he was eight to find out any loopholes that would help him avoid getting held-back or expelled, he found out the trick to the Genin team placements.

To try and make the teams as 'balanced' as possible, the Academy instructors would place the Rookie of the Year, the Top Kunoichi, and the dead-last in a team, and then work from there. The purpose of this was for the stronger members to pull the weight of the weaker ones until they got up to par.

However, with him on a team with the Uchiha who was most likely the top male student, and Sakura who was the top female student, their team would be insanely overpowered.

Thinking of his teammates, Naruto could only sneer in annoyance. Sasuke had potential no doubt about it, but he wasn't a 'genius' like everybody claimed. The kid had a clan taijutsu form, the academy ninjutsu, and one or two C-ranked Katon techniques.

Not very overwhelming in his opinion, he's just a big fish in a small pond. The Uchiha's older brother and Hatake had been promoted to Jonin at his age, yet everyone made Sasuke out to be the greatest thing that hit Konoha since Minato Namikaze.

Not to mention that the bastard was annoyingly arrogant and thought that everyone was beneath him. Putting that aside, at least he was competent. Unlike his other predicted teammate.

Naruto did not know how the hell Sakura was the Top Kunoichi, it just didn't make any sense. Physically, she's absolutely pathetic. She always did the minimum amount of exercise required for the Academy and was nowhere near the best female in taijutsu or bukijutsu. Taijutsu went to Hinata and bukijutsu went to Ino.

But for some reason, because she's a bookworm and gets 100s on every test, she's top kunoichi. So what's she gonna do against an enemy, throw knowledge at them?

Also, the girl was an absolute bitch. When they were younger she would always hit him for no good reason, when all he did was try to compliment her and ask for a date. But thanks to Kurama, he quickly realized that she was a shallow brat who would only pine for her 'Sasuke-kun'.

Sighing at the Academy's messed up standards for shinobi, he quickly told himself that his team was only a means to an end.

Kurama had drilled into his head that he was a loner, an outsider. A team would only slow him down and would eventually stab him in the back, especially in Konoha.

Whatever, once they passed the test from their sensei, he would avoid all interactions with them, assuming he didn't want to kill them first.

The one positive out of the many negatives of being on a team with the Uchiha and his number one fangirl was that there would be few jonin who would be willing to fail the two.

Since everyone always kissed the Uchiha's ass, especially the civilian council, they would take extra steps to get him a powerful sensei and pressure said sensei to pass the bastard. Also, Sakura's bitch of a mom was on the council, so she would try to pull some strings for her daughter as well.

Brushing those thoughts aside, Naruto headed to the shower in his training bunker, trying to make himself presentable for the final day at the Academy.

He was done trying to hide his true identity. Now that he had passed, there was nothing the civilians could do to impede him. It was time to showcase his strength.

Naruto almost wished some idiot in his class would provoke him so he could put them in their place.

" _Very soon, I'll be getting the respect I damn well deserve."_ thought Naruto, before entering the bathroom.

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About an hour later, a fully equipped Naruto was strolling through Konoha's Market Square en route to the Academy.

" **YYYAAAWWWNNN…. whew. That was a good night's sleep, so what's up with you kit?"** asked Kurama, rising from his blissful stupor.

" _Really? Now you're awake? Why do I get the feeling that most of the times you attacked villages, it was because they disturbed your slumber?"_ asked Naruto, mentally.

" **Hey! I take offense to that, kit. It wasn't most of the time, it was only... 40-50 percent, tops."** replied Kurama, in mock anger.

" _... You're really something special Kurama-sensei."_ thought Naruto, with a sigh.

" **Damn straight, I am. You don't cause grown men to piss their pants by the feel of your chakra by being average, kit. I've got skills."** boasted the biju.

The Uzumaki shook his head in amusement before he caught wind of someone talking about him behind his back.

"Damned demon… wish he would go ahead and die, and leave us all alone."

Naruto narrowed his gaze as he stopped and glared at the audacious old woman. Ever since Naruto had been under Kurama's tutelage and grew in strength, people such as this ignorant old prune angered him to the point that he made great pains to curb his killer instinct. Before, it was imperative that he just move along and deal with it, lest he blow his cover of being inept and stupid. However, this old bat had the misfortune of being the first to pick on a Naruto who had stopped giving two flying fucks about what the villagers thought of him anymore.

"Come on over here and repeat that, _onna_." growled Naruto, walking up to the old woman while releasing a little bit of killer intent.

The elderly villager was either so weak that she wasn't attuned enough to feel killer intent or so stupid that she would provoke a sleeping dragon, because she spat on the ground next to the blonde Uzumaki, dribbling his sandals.

"Don't you dare intimidate me, demon brat. You should have been put to the sword at birth." retorted the old woman.

Naruto's response was to lash his leg out and sweep her legs out from under her. She stumbled and tumbled, either spilling her groceries all over the pavement or falling on top of them. The Uzumaki snatched her walking cane from the ground and twirled it for a bit before snapping it in half with his knee. Not feeling satisfied, Naruto gathered his own saliva and shot a snot-tinged stream on the old bitch's head.

"There will be far worse consequences next time, grandma. You'd do well to remember that." sneered Naruto.

Having said his piece, the blonde continued his stroll to the Academy, his mood greatly improved. It felt so… liberating, finally saying 'screw it' to all the fear and apprehension and getting even with the people who made his life a miserable hell.

" **Kit, that was the most marvelous thing I have ever seen. I am so proud that I could cry… well that is if I could stop laughing first."** snickered Kurama, pounding his fist on the ground within Naruto's mindscape.

" _It was, wasn't it? And she was only the first one, sensei. So hold on, you'll choking on your spit because of all the laughter soon."_ said Naruto, mentally.

" **I'm looking forward to it, kit."** said Kurama with glee.

If only he could find some popcorn.

Several minutes later, the young Uzumaki entered the Ninja Academy while whistling an upbeat tune. On his way to class he passed the receptionist's desk, within it was a young female Chunin who was typing furiously on her keyboard, totally absorbed in whatever she was doing.

If it had stayed that way, there wouldn't have been a problem. But some three seconds after Naruto passed her desk, her head shot up as she noticed him.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I…" began the receptionist, before she halted in her pleasantries upon realizing who this boy was.

"Oh, it's you." she spat.

Raising an eyebrow at the quick change in emotions, the Uzumaki shrugged before waving his hand dismissively at her response.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm going to class now." said Naruto.

The boy stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked off, but stopped when his heightened hearing picked up the words, "Demon brat." from under her breath.

" _Well, I guess she just volunteered to be victim #2."_ thought Naruto.

" **Yes! Take her down a peg, kit. I'm itching to see what else you've got."** encouraged the demon fox.

With a small smirk, Naruto slowly turned to look at the woman, who glared back defiantly. The Uzumaki sent a tiny bit of Kurama's demonic chakra to his eyes, turning them into his sensei's famed slitted red eyes. Combined with a concentrated wave of killing intent, the foolish receptionist never stood a chance.

The young Chunin suddenly found it hard to breathe as she looked at the 'demon brat's' glowing eyes. When she stared into them, all of a sudden her surroundings morphed into an eerie black landscape with none other than the Kyubi no Yoko in all of his glory staring down at her pathetic frame.

The biju's unrestrained killing intent bored through her, and she could do nothing but fall to her knees and break down.

"...K...K-K…Kyubi…" whimpered the female Chunin, who was crying uncontrollably at this point.

 **"GGRRAAHHH!"** bellowed the titanic beast, before lunging at her with his jaws wide open, ready to devour the insignificant human.

The receptionist screamed like there was no tomorrow until all of a sudden she was back at her desk, the 'demon brat' gone but the oppressive feeling of dread remaining. She soon learned why when a clawed hand wrapped itself around her mouth in a split second, before another clawed hand erupted from her chest in a torrent of blood, bone, and tissue.

Satisfied with a lesson well taught, Naruto turned on his heel and walked to his classroom. Behind him, he heard the receptionist retch and spill her breakfast into a trashcan.

" **Kit… keep this up and I'll have to take lessons from you."** congratulated Kurama.

" _Well then, get out a pencil and pen. Because I'm pretty sure there's more to come when I have to deal with my 'classmates'."_ said Naruto.

* * *

The door of Naruto's homeroom slowly opened while making an audible creaking sound, and instantly all eyes went to the seemingly unknown student who entered.

"We have a new student? But graduation has passed already, isn't it a little late for that?" asked Choji, while munching on some potato chips.

"Who is that guy?" asked Ino, slightly blushing at the student's muscular frame.

"Where did he come from? Troublesome." asked Shikamaru, opening an eye from his nap.

"Why does he look so… familiar?" asked the Hyuga princess, Hinata.

A young black-haired boy in the far right of the class took a single glance at the 'new student' before going back to his staring in space.

"Hello there, new student. I think you might've entered the wrong class here. This seminar is for recently graduated Academy students. My name is Iruka, and I'd be happy to help you get situated here." said the pony-tail haired shinobi.

"Have I really changed that much, Iruka?" asked Naruto, in confusion.

" _Wait… that voice…"_ thought the scarred chunin.

"Do I know you, young man?" asked Iruka, now suspicious.

"It's me, Iruka. Uzumaki Naruto." said Naruto, with a raised eyebrow.

The classroom was suddenly encompassed in dead silence for a few moments, before shocked gasps became audible.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" roared nearly the entire class, it was like the entire class exploded.

"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

"THAT CAN'T BE HIM!"

"HE GREW!"

"WHERE'S THE JUMPSUIT?!"

Naruto growled in annoyance at the Academy graduates' reactions to his normal appearance. They were soon to be shinobi, damn it. Why couldn't they act like it?

"Are you serious? Are you really Naruto?!" asked Iruka, incredulously.

"Yes. It's really me, Iruka." answered Naruto.

"It's only been a week since graduation! You went from wearing bright 'kill-me' orange to actual shinobi attire, and did you… grow? How could you have changed so much?" asked Iruka, still staring in shocked disbelief.

"What can I say? Since I'm a shinobi now, I decided to stop goofing around and take the profession seriously." answered Naruto.

Iruka nodded in agreement, happy that the boy had finally turned around. Maybe some people just needed more time to mature than others.

"HA! Look at him, trying to act all tough. He's just posturing so his team sensei doesn't see how much of a dead-last he is. Still can't fight anybody worth a damn!" laughed Kiba, scornfully. The Inuzuka's ninken, Akamaru, barked affirmatively.

Most of the class erupted into laughter, reminding themselves that this was Naruto, the dobe, the dead-last, the knuckleheaded shinobi that would get himself killed the first moment he saw combat.

" **Hmph. That mutt just volunteered himself to be victim #3."** said Kurama, snarling in anger.

" _You have no idea, Kurama-sensei."_ agreed Naruto, equally annoyed.

Naruto's response was to quickly form a hand seal, which activated a weapon storage seal on his right forearm guard. In a small poof of smoke, a kunai appeared. The Uzumaki grabbed the floating kunai and skillfully threw it at the Inuzuka who was still laughing at his his own joke.

The kunai landed on Kiba's chair, right in between the Inuzuka's legs, and only 2 centimeters from his prized jewels. The boy upon realizing what had occurred, screamed in terror in a voice that was two octaves higher than normal, losing several man points.

"Oh quit your bitching, mutt. It's not like you had any balls in the first place... dumbass." mocked Naruto, twirling another kunai on his left pointer finger.

The class froze once again in stunned silence.

Where did that kunai come from?

Since when could he throw like that?

Since when could he intelligently counter another's insults?

Shaking himself out of his panicked state, Kiba quickly reddened in anger.

"Who the hell do you think you're messing with, dead-last? I'm the second-best student in this class, and you better learn the pecking order, or else." snarled Kiba.

"Hey! Naruto and Kiba, enough with this nonsense! Sit down, now!" shouted Iruka, utilizing his head expansion powers.

However, his protests fell upon deaf ears.

"Or else, what? You'll bring your clan's pathetic, third-rate fighting style on me? Bring it on, I've got a whole can of whoop-ass ready for another sucker, that is if you're man enough… _bibi-chan_." countered Naruto, smirking.

"NARUTO!" roared Kiba, charging the blonde Uzumaki.

It was one thing that the dead-last had embarrassed him in front of the entire class with that well-thrown kunai, but to insult his clan and call him a 'scaredy-cat'? The Uzumaki must've had a death wish.

Well that was the case in Kiba's head.

His impaired intelligence wasn't being helped at all, with the class feeding his arrogance by cheering for the fight and for him to kick Naruto's ass.

Unfortunately, Kiba's imagination and reality were as much of a pair of polar opposites as possible. Oh well, you know what they say, "the truth hurts".

Although in this case, it was going to be more literal than figurative.

The Inuzuka brought his fist back and threw a wild haymaker at Naruto. The Uzumaki easily sidestepped and kicked Kiba's right leg out from under him. Kiba was already over-extended from his haymaker, but Naruto's maneuver sent him tumbling, until he landed face-first into the chalkboard.

A couple seconds after impact, the wild-haired boy slid to the ground in a daze, his eyes swirls while sporting a bloodied nose. All in all, Kiba got knocked the fuck out.

Dead silence reigned in the class once more, and the blonde Uzumaki glared into the crowd, daring anyone of them to say something he didn't like and face the consequences.

" _Damn, I didn't see that one coming. One minute Naruto is a clueless idiot, the next minute he kicks Kiba's ass like it was nothing. Troublesome… too troublesome."_ thought Shikamaru.

" _Hn. The dobe has gained some skills it seems. Whatever, it's nothing an Uchiha can't handle."_ thought Sasuke, smirking to himself.

" **Meh. In my opinion kit, you should've made that mutt suffer a bit more. You let him off a little too easy."** critiqued Kurama.

" _I guess. But I'm a little burnt out after having to deal with three out of place mongrels in a row. Kiba was just lucky enough to have pissed off a bored me, if he was the 'first victim' he'd have been in the hospital by now."_ replied Naruto.

"Alright class, I think we've had enough excitement for today. Someone please take Kiba to the nurse, and Naruto please take a seat so I can announce the teams." said Iruka, sighing in relief that this was his last day teaching this class.

Naruto nodded before heading up the stairs and sitting in Kiba's vacant seat next to Hinata, who blushed in return. While a couple of civilian Academy graduates who were sitting in the bottom row, hefted Kiba up and dragged him to the nurse's office.

"Now then, if we're all situated, here are this year's Genin team placements. Team 1…" began Iruka, while looking over his notebook.

A minute or two passed until Iruka had finally reached the teams that were worth a damn.

"... Team 7: Uzumaki Naruto…" continued Iruka.

Naruto kept silent and nodded, he already knew who his team was.

"... Haruno Sakura…"

The pink-haired girl dropped her head in sadness. Why was fate so cruel?

"Hahaha. Looks like luck isn't on your side today, forehead." boasted Ino, laughing at her rival's misfortune, and receiving a glare in return from Sakura.

"... and Uchiha Sasuke. Your jonin commander is Hatake Kakashi."

"YATTA! What was that about luck, Ino-pig? It looks like true love conquers all!" screeched Sakura, and gaining a glare back from Ino.

Sasuke gave a slight smirk at the news. He knew about Kakashi, he was the village's top jonin along with Maito Gai. It seemed fitting that he, the 'last Uchiha', would get someone as high profile as Kakashi for a sensei.

Naruto rubbed his temples in aggravation, these two fangirls were so goddamn annoying! He knew he'd have Sakura as a teammate but just being in the same classroom as her wanted to make him retch. But at least he was getting a competent jonin, he really needed to thank the man for the Shadow Clone technique… that is, if the man didn't hate him because of the fox.

"Team 8: Inuzuka Kiba… Aburame Shino… and Hyuga Hinata. Your jonin commander is Yuhi Kurenai."

Shino nodded in confirmation and Hinata smiled slightly. Kurenai had been her caretaker when she was younger and now she had her for a sensei. Kiba wasn't here for the news because he was still out cold from Naruto's ass-whooping in the nurse's office.

"Team 9 is still in circulation from last year. Team 10: Nara Shikamaru… Akimichi Choji… and Yamanaka Ino. Your jonin commander is Sarutobi Asuma."

"WHAT! NO! Why am I on a team with the fat-ass and the sloth?! I should be on a team with Sas-" began Ino, before she was silenced by a paralyzing senbon.

"Shut your fucking trap, Yamanaka. If you're so unhappy about your teammates, then think about how Shikamaru and Choji feel about you. Rant over, please continue Iruka." said Naruto, twirling senbon between his fingertips.

Ino glared at the Uzumaki, but couldn't retort due to the paralyzing agent. Shikamaru and Choji looked over in surprise at the Uzumaki and nodded him their thanks, to which Naruto returned, disinterestedly.

He really only cared about shutting the dumb blonde up, but he felt a little sympathy towards the two as they had to suffer like he did with an annoying teammate. Well, at least they had each other, which wasn't something he could say.

"Right… Team 11 is…" continued Iruka until he finished assigning all the Genins a team and a sensei.

Soon after, Jonin sensei arrived and picked up their Genin cells, one by one. Eventually all that remained was Team 7.

Ten minutes soon turned into two hours as the newly formed team waited for their infuriatingly late sensei.

Sasuke stared into the air, brooding, Sakura sat bored out of her mind with her hands on her cheeks, and Naruto was drawing in his notebook, trying to work out the kinks in his latest fuinjutsu project.

Finally, after three hours, a silver-haired masked man sporting dark-blue combat undergarments, a Chunin vest, finger-less gloves, and a hitai-ate that covered one of his eyes, entered the room.

"My first impression of you… you're all boring. Meet me up on the roof in five minutes." lazily drawled the man, before he disappeared in a **Shunshin**.

* * *

Hatake Kakashi closely examined the three Academy graduates before him and immediately noticed something was off.

Uchiha Sasuke was pretty much what he expected. Dark, broody, anti-social, and supposedly the best out of this year's crop of Genin hopefuls.

Haruno Sakura was supposed to be this year's Top Kunoichi, but from what he could see, this was clearly not the case. Her arms were thin and skinny, completely devoid of muscle definition, and the way she kept ogling the Uchiha made him write her off as a fangirl.

Uzumaki Naruto, on the other hand, was the biggest surprise of the trio. Rather than wearing the bright 'kill-me orange' and goofy grin that he had been briefed on in the Academy reports, he was looking at a mature young man who seemed to take his profession seriously.

The Academy instructors had repeatedly informed him that the boy was the 'dead-last', a buffoon, a knucklehead, an untalented write-off who was only good for cannon-fodder, but that clearly wasn't the case. The Uzumaki seemed to radiate this aura of power and indomitable will, and his eyes gleamed with an assessing, intelligent light that was possessed in very few.

The blonde reminded him of a shorter-haired kid Minato, but somehow much more driven, and much colder.

Alarm bells rang in his head, warning him to take him seriously, but the aloof Jonin dismissed them.

"Alright, why don't you all tell me something about yourselves? Likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams and/or aspirations." asked Kakashi.

"Umm, why don't you go first sensei? You know, so we can see how it goes." asked Sakura, uncertainly.

"Fine. My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have things that I like and a few things that I don't. Hobbies? I have hobbies… as for dreams… I never really thought about it." said the Jonin, lazily.

" _All we learned was his name."_ thought Sakura.

"You first Pinky." said Kakashi, pointing to the only female in the group.

Sakura scowled at the nickname but obliged anyway.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, twelve years old. My likes… (looks at Sasuke and blushes)... I hate Ino-pig and Naruto-baka… and my dream… (looks at Sasuke and giggles)."

" _You have to be frickin' kidding me."_ thought Naruto, in disbelief.

They let something like Sakura not only pass, but made her Top Kunoichi?

"You next, Uchiha." said Kakashi, pointing to Sasuke.

"Sasuke Uchiha, twelve years old. I have few likes and many dislikes. I don't have any hobbies, nor a dream, but an ambition. To kill a certain someone and restore the honor of my clan." said the 'last Uchiha'.

" _What honor? Your clan was just a bunch of arrogant douchebags who stole people's hard earned jutsus with some fancy eyes. I say good riddance."_ thought Naruto in distaste.

" **I second that, kit."** said Kurama, remembering his intense dislike of the Uchiha Clan.

" _Wow! Sasuke-kun is so cool!"_ swooned Sakura, with hearts in her eyes.

"Ok, now you Blondie." said Kakashi, actually a bit interested in learning about the conundrum that is Uzumaki Naruto.

"Uzumaki Naruto, twelve years old. My likes are training, the Ichirakus, and a certain person. I hate the rest of Konoha's population. My ambition, to become the strongest this world has ever seen and stick a middle finger to this shithole of a village in the process." said Naruto, unflinchingly.

Sakura had her mouth open in shock, Sasuke raised an eyebrow, and Kakashi actually sweated a little bit.

" _Good lord, have mercy on my poor soul. I have a wannabe avenger, his number 1 fangirl, and a flight risk. Damn, I'm already halfway in the grave with this team."_ thought Kakashi in horror.

"Alrighty then… meet me tomorrow at training ground 7 at 6:00 AM for your Genin test. And don't eat breakfast or you'll puke." said Kakashi.

Sasuke and Sakura looked surprised, while Naruto kept quiet, he already knew of this.

"But… but… sensei, we have already graduated from the Academy. I thought we were Genin already!" protested Sakura.

"Oh that? Well you see, that was only to weed out the hopeless cases. The _real_ Genin test is administered by the Jonin-commanders and it has a 66 percent fail rate." said Kakashi in obvious amusement, he always loved making the Genin squirm.

Well in this case only Sakura was panicking, Sasuke looked determined, and Naruto didn't give a damn.

"See ya tomorrow!" said Kakashi cheerfully, before he vanished in a **Shunshin**.

Sasuke just scoffed and turned around to leave, with Sakura on his heels trying to badger him for a date, leaving Naruto by himself.

" _So what do you think, Kurama-sensei?"_ asked Naruto, mentally.

" **This team is going to be a real pain in the ass, I swear. If I was in your shoes, I would just eat them."** said Kurama, shaking his head.

" _Tell me about it."_ agreed Naruto.

" **Well at least your test against the scarecrow will be entertaining. It will be helpful to know where you stand against Konoha's top Jonin."** said Kurama.

" _Yeah, I'll let Kakashi deal with the Uchiha and Haruno, before besting him in combat and taking the bells. Once that's accomplished, I'll tell him the real reason of the test, he'll take us on as a team, and then I can finally get some real combat."_ said Naruto, mentally.

But first, time to get some training in to refine some techniques and experiment with some fuinjutsu.

* * *

Naruto instantly sat up when he heard his alarm clock go off. The blonde smirked, today was going to be a great day. A great day for Naruto was fighting a challenging opponent and blowing things up… blowing hundreds of things up. Oh sure, Kurama was a great opponent to face, but Kurama was a massive beast who didn't really use ninjutsu outside of breathing fire and creating tornadoes with his tails. Also, fighting the same opponent over and over again got monotonous. His Shadow Clones were great for sparring but they were based off of him and therefore he knew how they fought.

Something came to Naruto when he thought of his potential fight with Kakashi and it made him insanely grateful for his training abilities with clones. Kakashi was famed with his Sharingan and had used it to copy over 1000 jutsu, or so he had heard. Most people would be afraid of fighting him, because the one-eyed Jonin would just steal their techniques and throw it right back at them.

However, thanks to the massive amounts of experience that he gained by training with clones, he had mastered his entire ninjutsu repertoire to the point that he could mold chakra either with one hand-seal or no hand-seals, negating the Sharingan's ability to copy the chakra flow of hand-seals when someone was utilizing ninjutsu.

Essentially, Naruto was able to unleash devastatingly powerful Wind, Fire, and Lightning Release ninjutsu upon Kakashi with impunity, and have no fear of the man stealing his abilities. The Sharingan was a true piece of bullshit, being able to steal and use other people's techniques without their permission or at least without proper training was insulting and Naruto vowed to never let it happen to him.

After showering and eating a hearty breakfast, Naruto began donning his combat armor with a few modifications such as a faster weapon unsealing seal, some material hardening enhancement seals to increase the durability and striking power of his gear, and some resistance seals to protect him from elemental jutsus.

The blonde stockpiled some fuinjutsu sealing scrolls that held a library of scrolls possessing combat potential within his pockets and pouches. Satisfied with his preparations, the Uzumaki departed from his secret bunker, ready to showcase his abilities.

Ten minutes later, Naruto arrived at training ground 7 before everyone else, and began to engage in some warm-up exercises and stretches, knowing Kakashi would be annoyingly late.

A couple minutes later Sakura arrived on the field, yawning in sleepiness. The girl glanced at her blonde teammate who was stretching before sitting near a wooden post and trying to get some rest.

Sasuke arrived exactly at 6:00, brooding as usual and found a spot to sit that was far away from Sakura, hopefully so she could leave him alone.

Half an hour later, Kakashi arrived in a **Shunshin** , while reading his trademark orange book and giggling perversely.

"Yo." greeted Kakashi.

"YOU'RE LATE!" screeched an all too familiar voice.

The guys covered their ears, in pain from the verbal attack that had assaulted their earlobes.

Why was she so goddamn loud?

"Well you see, I took a wrong turn at the road of life." said Kakashi, whipping out one of his trademark excuses.

"LIAR!" yelled Sakura, once again.

Naruto couldn't help but roll his eyes, she really needed a mute button. He wasn't in the mood to waste his paralyzing senbon on shutting the pink-haired harpy's mouth.

"Hmm… well now that we're all here, we can get started with the exam." said Kakashi, before pulling out two bells and an alarm clock.

"Your job is to take these two bells from me. Whoever gets a bell passes, and whoever doesn't will get tied to the post over there while the others eat lunch before being sent back to the Academy. When this clock rings, the test is over and I'll decide whether you pass or not." said Kakashi.

"Wait, Kakashi-sensei. There are only two bells, but three of us." said Sakura, in confusion.

"Exactly." said Kakashi, increasing the pinkette's confusion.

"Remember to come at me with the intent to kill, or you won't succeed." said Kakashi.

"But sensei, won't we hurt you?" asked Sakura.

If Naruto wasn't so emotionally stunted due to all of the village's abuse, he would have been rolling on the floor, laughing his ass off.

Sakura, hurt Kakashi?

Sakura was one of the weakest people he knew, civilian or otherwise, and she thought she could hurt a Jonin?

"Don't worry about that, I'll be fine." assured Kakashi.

Finished with his instructions, he put the alarm clock on top of one of the wooden posts and set the time limit, before tying the two bells to the rim of his Chunin vest.

All of a sudden two stomachs began to growl, and everyone turned to Naruto who was looking totally fine.

"Didn't I order you to not eat breakfast?" asked Kakashi, with a raised eyebrow.

"You did, but I ignored you." said Naruto, blandly.

"Well, at least one of you knows to not listen to stupid orders." said Kakashi with an eye smile.

Both Sakura and Sasuke looked upset at this. Sakura especially because she skipped dinner the previous night as well.

"BEGIN!" yelled Kakashi, while starting the alarm clock.

On Kakashi's command the three Genin disappeared... well... Sakura hid in a bush, Sasuke took refuge near a clearing, and Naruto camouflaged himself with a custom-made infiltration fuinjutsu kit.

Kakashi, feeling gracious, gave the three Genin a minute or two to get situated before he would hunt them down like prison escapees.

After his self imposed waiting period had passed, Kakashi tried to feel out the chakra signatures of his three Genin examinees.

Even though Kakashi wasn't a natural-born sensor, thanks to his years of combat experience and skill with chakra, he was able to sense others from a reasonable distance. However, the silver-haired man had quickly been given a surprise when he searched for the Genin.

He could sense Sakura and Sasuke just fine, Sakura was hiding in a bush watching his actions while Sasuke was setting up a trap in a clearing, most likely preparing to spring a surprise on him once he 'found' the Uchiha. The problem though, was that he _couldn't_ sense Naruto, at all.

Naruto was a jinchuriki, and that meant he had overwhelmingly large chakra reserves compared to shinobi his age. This should've prevented him from being able to control it properly, let alone conceal it completely!

More and more alarm bells were ringing in Kakashi's head, warning him to deal with Naruto first or at least consider as a threat. But being the A-ranked shinobi he was, and being a lazy ass, he wasn't inclined to listen to his conscience just yet.

Deciding to go for the easiest target first, Kakashi quickly set his sights for Sakura. The girl was the closest in location to him and her personality flaws made her a perfect first victim.

* * *

Sakura was observing her sensei in a bush before she heard rustling within the bushes she was hiding in.

Letting out a started 'eep', she bolted out of the bushes and hid behind a tree, until she saw that the rustling noise was caused by a baby squirrel.

" _Whew. This test must really be messing with my nerves. I was freaked out by a tiny squirrel."_ thought the pinkette.

Going back in the bushes, she was surprised to see that Kakashi had disappeared from where he was standing only a moment ago.

" _Crap! Where did he go?"_ thought Sakura, searching frantically for the silver-haired Jonin.

"Hey! Sakura." said an ominous voice.

Sakura turned around very slowly, before she was facing her sensei who was sporting a shit-eating grin.

"Got you. **Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu. (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique)** " chanted Kakashi, while forming a hand-seal.

Sakura's eyes dilated as she was encompassed by the effects of the genjutsu. Kakashi was suddenly enveloped by a torrent of leaves before vanishing. The leaves that obscured the jonin blew in the wind, washing over the pinkette until everything seemingly returned to normal.

" _What just happened? I thought that was a genjutsu but everything looks normal. Maybe it was a dud?"_ thought Sakura, wondrously.

The girl slowly walked out of the bush littered area, until she heard a faint and pain-filled voice beckoning for her.

"S-Sakura… Sakura..."

The girl in question turned to her left, before her eyes widened in shock and terror. Sasuke, the object of her affections, was leaning against a tree, covered in kunai, shuriken, and blood, and seemed ready to keel over any minute.

"Sakura… h-help me." muttered Sasuke, before he fell to the ground dead.

Sakura froze in disbelief for a few seconds, before screaming in agony and collapsing to the ground, unconscious.

" _Oh come on, what the hell is this? She was praised as being a prodigy in the intellectual fields, and graduated as Top Kunoichi, but she couldn't even break out of a D-Ranked genjutsu? What is going on in the Academy?"_ thought the observing Kakashi in disappointment, before he moved on to find Sasuke.

* * *

" _That scream. That sounded like Sakura."_ thought Sasuke, in contemplation.

The Uchiha had finally finished priming his trap for Kakashi, now all he needed to do was wait for the Jonin to 'find' him, outsmart the bastard, and then take the bells.

" _Whatever, Sakura is not my concern. If she can't take care of herself, then she is only dead weight. Right now, I have more pressing matters, like passing this test."_ thought the Uchiha.

"I'll show that lazy Jonin that I'm different from the others." said Sasuke, with a determined glare on his face.

"Those are bold words, Sasuke- _chan_. Care to put your money where your mouth is?" asked Kakashi, appearing behind the Uchiha while reading his porn.

The black-haired pre-teen turned to face the Jonin, before reaching into his pouch and drawing ten shuriken.

Sasuke held each shuriken between his knuckles, before launching them at Kakashi with surprising speed and accuracy.

" _Hmm… not bad. His use of a curved trajectory to encircle his opponent and strike from all sides is a good idea."_ thought Kakashi, somehow noticing what Sasuke was doing without taking his eyes off of his book.

Waiting until the last second to mess with Sasuke, Kakashi jumped into the air to avoid the projectiles, while still reading his book.

" _But I'm not a Jonin for nothing."_ thought the silver-haired ninja.

Sasuke smirked, Kakashi had evaded right where he wanted him to. The Uchiha charged forward, readying a kunai, he needed to get close so he wouldn't miss his target.

"HA!" yelled Sasuke, throwing the kunai in between a pair of trees.

The kunai pierced a piece of rope that held a large log in place. Without said rope restraining the object, the log swung down, right into the area where the jonin was descending.

Kakashi used a **Kawarimi** to get away, letting the log smash into the branch that he substituted with, and reappeared on the ground, sliding to a halt.

Sasuke, not staying idle, had charged to where he sensed Kakashi's chakra had transferred to. The Uchiha suddenly appeared where Kakashi had landed, spinning to gain momentum for his taijutsu assault.

"Take this!" yelled Sasuke, launching a powerful hook kick at Kakashi.

The silver-haired Jonin blocked, unfortunately having to drop his orange book, as he would need his full attention to deal with Sasuke.

Sasuke quickly followed up, throwing a straight jab at Kakashi's face, to which the silver-haired Jonin caught. The Uchiha attacked once more, swinging his unused leg up to catch Kakashi in the chin. Reaching fast, Kakashi let go of Sasuke's fist and caught the offending leg, now holding the Uchiha upside down in their melee exchange.

Sasuke smirked at the change of events, Kakashi's arms were occupied and he had a clear path to the 'prize'. The black-haired pre-teen reached out for the bells tied to Kakashi's vest, but the Jonin saw what he was up to and jumped back in time to only allow Sasuke to touch the bells with the tips of his fingers.

Sasuke bounced off of his hands and backflipped a couple of times to gain some distance. The Uchiha quickly realized that close combat wasn't going to cut it and that he'd better up the stakes.

"Not bad, Sasuke. But you'll need to do better than that to get these bells." said Kakashi, mockingly.

Sasuke's response was to begin a chain of hand-seals, before taking a deep breath in preparation for his signature jutsu.

" **Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)** " yelled Sasuke, before launching a sizeable fireball at Kakashi from his mouth.

" _What?! Genin can't perform nature change jutsus, it takes too much chakra!"_ thought Kakashi in surprise.

The fireball crashed and detonated where Kakashi was standing, creating a crater several meters in radius. After the smoke cleared, there was burnt grass and upturned soil, but no sign of Kakashi.

"Huh? Where did he go?" said Sasuke, to himself.

" _Okay, think Sasuke. Forward... no. Backward… no. To the left… no. To the right… no. Above… no. So he must be-"_ thought Sasuke, before a pair of hands grabbed his ankles from underground.

"Below. **Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu. (Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique)** " said Kakashi, his voice muffled from being underground.

Sasuke yelled as he was pulled underground, until all that was left of him at ground level was his head.

"Well, Sasuke. After all this, I can definitely say that you're different than your teammates, but I'm not necessarily sure about better. Try again later… that is if you can dig your way out." mocked Kakashi with an eye smile, before he disappeared once again with a **Shunshin**.

"Argh. Just great." growled Sasuke, before struggling mightily to escape his predicament.

* * *

" _Now that Haruno and the Uchiha are out of the way, it's time to cut loose."_ thought Naruto, reappearing into visibility again.

Naruto's ability to fade into his surroundings and hide his chakra signature was thanks to some of his newest fuinjutsu creations.

To camouflage himself, the Uzumaki inscribed seals for a concealment genjutsu on a paper tag, before infusing the creation with some chakra. Normally, because of his large reserves, he couldn't create a genjutsu because he didn't have the control to proportion his chakra in such tiny amounts. However, he could bypass that little obstruction by inscribing calligraphy characters on chakra tags to substitute for hand-seals. The characters would proportion the right amount of chakra from the amount he put in, and use the rest as an energy source to prolong the effect. With this remarkable invention, the large amounts chakra that he pushed into the tag weren't a detriment, but a boon.

Then to mask his chakra signature, Naruto inscribed seals on square shapes of paper and would arrange them in a hexagonal shape around him, about 2 meters in radius. Once he activated the seals, they would form a protective barrier that had the power to prevent chakra from escaping within. This could be used to trap an opponent and temporarily prevent them from using ninjutsu, as the techniques would just dissipate against the walls until the barrier was overwhelmed, or he could use it to prevent the chakra that continuously leaked from his body from escaping into the air. This nifty little ability allowed him to avoid the probing of a sensory shinobi unless they were in close proximity with him.

Oh, the wonders of fuinjutsu.

However, now he was out in the open and he needed to find a suitable clearing for combat before Kakashi locked on to his signature and found him.

Re-entering the grassy field that Kakashi gave the instructions for the bell test with a **Shunshin** , Naruto paced around the clearing for a couple seconds before said silver-haired Jonin was standing before him.

"Naruto, you're quite the little infiltrator aren't you? I couldn't even sense your presence, until I had dealt with Sasuke. Why would you wait until they were out of the way to come out into the open?" asked Kakashi, with an eyebrow raised.

"Simple. I didn't want the Uchiha and Haruno to interfere." said Naruto, monotone.

"If all three of you had worked together, it would have increased your chances of beating me. Coming after me by yourself is a little arrogant, don't you think?" asked Kakashi.

"Hmph. Enough talk, let's fight Hatake." said Naruto, before slipping into the opening stance of the _Kitsune-ken_ taijutsu form.

The Uzumaki began to glow, as blue wisps of chakra emitted from his body. His fingernails, toenails, and canines elongated and the veins in his hands bulged and become visible. Naruto crouched and crossed his wrists in an X-formation, ready to pounce on the Jonin.

"You'll quickly learn, why it's plain idiocy to underestimate me." growled Naruto, in a feral and predatory voice.


	3. Rage of the Divine Wind

**Chapter 3: Rage of the Divine Wind**

Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Uzumaki Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. He resigns himself to the fate that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be accepted as a human, and that he has no happy ending. Instead, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Konoha wants a demon, oh he'll give them a demon all right. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto

* * *

Author's Note:

Hello readers, here it is... what you've all been waiting for... Naruto vs. Kakashi! First, I want to apologize to my readers for the amount of time it took to release this chapter, that was all due to traveling to Boston to visit colleges (M.I.T. and Harvard), various school projects, and slaving over this chapter. I literally wrote entire scenes, deleted them, and re-wrote them to make sure they all flowed well. Just so you all now, this chapter is dedicated entire to the fight, so don't worry about the fight ending prematurely and moving on to other stuff, I did this all for a reason.

As I said in Chapter 1, there will be a lot of ROFL-stomps since Naruto outclasses his graduating class by so much it's not even funny, so all the fights in which he's actually against Jonin or higher ranked adversaries (Kakashi, Zabuza, Orochimaru, Itachi & Kisame, Kabuto, and Kimmimaro) will be pretty lengthy. This is also my first time writing a pro-longed Naruto fight, and I tried my hardest to make things as descriptive as possible so you'd see what I'm visualizing and make it as fluid as possible.

Alright... rant over.

Enjoy the chapter, and PLEASE REVIEW, especially for this chapter, I really want to get better at writing fight scenes so I need you guys to point out at what I did right and what I did wrong.

* * *

Training Ground 7 was silent, all that was heard was either the gentle whistle of the wind or the occasional ruffling of leaves.

In the middle of a grassy field, Uzumaki Naruto and Hatake Kakashi stared each other down, standing twenty meters apart.

"I'm an idiot for underestimating you? Naruto, no matter how good you think you are, you're still a snot-nosed Genin and I'm an A-rank Jonin. You're years away from even laying a scratch on me, kid." said Kakashi, a little bit mockingly.

"Keep telling yourself that, Kakashi. You'll see soon enough." retorted Naruto.

The silver-haired Jonin sighed in resignation, before sliding into a defense-oriented stance. He would see how 'good' the blonde was, before proceeding to dispatch him. Kakashi did believe that reports about Naruto from the Academy were false, he just didn't realize how far from the truth they were.

Kakashi thought that the Uzumaki was probably in the middle of the pack for the new class of Genins, but that all of the hatred and prejudice from the Chunin instructors had led them to sabotage the boy, leading to his placement as 'dead-last'.

Seeing how far Sasuke, the top Academy graduate, had managed to push him, Kakashi wasn't too worried about the blonde. All he would have to worry about was some amateurish Kenjutsu skills, a good foundation in taijutsu, and maybe a surprise C-Rank ninjutsu.

It was almost funny to know how wrong the Jonin was.

"Lesson 1: Taijutsu." said Kakashi, cracking his knuckles.

When the silver-haired Jonin refocused his attention on his Genin challenger, his uncovered eye widened in disbelief as the Uzumaki who was just standing twenty meters in front of him vanished, a dust cloud the only reminder of his previous presence.

" _What the-GAH!"_ wondered Kakashi, before his train of thought was interrupted by his head snapping painfully backwards.

Naruto had charged the silver-haired Jonin at speeds faster than even Maito Gai, and struck him in the chin with a clawed palm-strike.

Kakashi stumbled backwards, and in a moment of rage and well-developed reflexes, threw a hard left-hook at the Uzumaki.

The silver-haired Jonin's counterattack would have KO'd a normal Genin instantly, heck the Genin wouldn't have even seen it coming.

However, Naruto ducked with ease and rocked Kakashi in the abdomen with an uppercut. Coughing up blood, the Jonin doubled over in pain, before being smashed face first into the ground by a powerful elbow strike to the neck.

The Uzumaki pushed his initiative by jumping in the air and swinging his leg up, in preparation for an axe-kick, but Kakashi rolled out of the way before his spine could be crushed.

Naruto, not willing to give Kakashi a moment of reprieve, charged once again with a flying heel-kick to the chin, but the Jonin narrowly dodged it with a backflip. Kakashi continued with his evasive maneuver until he had pushed off hard enough from the ground to land on a tree branch.

" _Hmph. At least he can take a hit."_ thought Naruto.

Kakashi panted heavily, wearily leaning on the trunk of a medium sized tree. His body was groaning in pain and he felt like keeling over.

All from just three hits.

" _Damn… what the hell was that?! That kid's punches are like a sledgehammer!"_ thought Kakashi, baffled.

The silver-haired Jonin had a right to be confused, very few in the village could hold a candle to him to strength. Yet, here he was being batted around like a rag-doll within the first minute of a fight against a fresh out of the academy Genin.

It had to be opposite day… it… it just had to be!

"What's the matter Hatake? I warned you, did I not?" asked Naruto, with a smirk.

Before the Jonin could answer, Naruto formed a one-handed hand-seal causing six kunai with exploding tags attached to appear in a poof of smoke. The blonde's secret ability was the result of custom-made, forearm guard storage seals. One such invention could store thousands of kunai, shuriken, senbon, and other projectiles of the like.

Grasping the projectiles between his knuckles, the Uzumaki crossed his arms in an X-formation before launching the weaponry.

With highly-practiced aim and speed, the exploding kunai landed on the branch that Kakashi was standing on, its detonation tags halfway consumed by flames. Kakashi jumped off the wooden platform before it was engulfed in a sizeable explosion, and landed back on the grassy clearing.

Naruto grinned savagely, before blitzing the silver-haired Jonin. The Uzumaki's form flickered chaotically, as he quickly zigzagged across the battlefield at ridiculous speeds.

Kakashi shook his head to clear his thoughts, before focusing on tracking the Genin's movements. After pinpointing the blonde's trajectory, Kakashi charged full-force as well, finally willing to listen to the nagging voice in his head that had warned him of the blonde's danger level.

The two combatants cocked back a fist as they approached each other, before clashing in a contest of might. In respect to their momentum, Naruto and Kakashi flew past each other, but their reflexes kicked in and they both turned on their heels to re-engage.

Naruto initiated the exchange with a back-hand strike, but Kakashi ducked before using his momentum to launch a spinning heel-kick. The blonde easily blocked the maneuver and retaliated with a barrage of clawed spear-hand strikes.

Realizing the danger, Kakashi quickly began to deflect Naruto's vicious assault, aiming for the wrists to avoid being scratched, before swiping at the Uzumaki's neck to force him to back off. Naruto ducked under the attack however, before launching a sweeping kick to trip the Jonin up.

Kakashi jumped into the air to avoid, and came down with a stomp kick that was dodged with a roll by Naruto. The jinchuriki threw himself into a cartwheel that doubled as a downward-arc kick, but Kakashi leaned back to avoid before blocking the blonde's following backhand strike.

Kakashi threw an uppercut at Naruto's chin, forcing the Uzumaki to back off, and quickly followed up with a few straight jabs. Naruto tilted his head a few times to avoid the first three jabs, before rushing forward and inside blocking the fourth jab, successfully getting within the Jonin's guard.

Naruto launched a knee-strike at Kakashi's abdomen, but the Jonin caught the offending appendage with his palms, before pushing off of it to gain some space. The Uzumaki pursued the silver-haired Jonin and upon catching up, flew forward with a side-kick.

Kakashi sidestepped the attack, and followed with an elbow strike which was caught and pushed away by Naruto. The Jonin, utilizing the momentum he gained from Naruto's counter, spun around with a heel-kick once again, but the blonde ducked his follow up.

Naruto launched an upwards claw-strike which was avoided by Kakashi, before changing his failed maneuver into a hammer strike. Kakashi hastily brought up his guard, and even though it was knocked aside, it succeeded in slowing the blow. Naruto followed with a side-kick, but Kakashi jumped to dodge, before countering with an aerial stomp kick that was in turn blocked by Naruto.

Not giving up, Kakashi pushed off of Naruto's blocking arm and attempted a drop-kick, but the Uzumaki countered with a cross-armed block.

The Uzumaki swiped his arms outward to push Kakashi away, before speeding towards the Jonin. After gaining enough speed, Naruto jumped into the air while spinning to launch a powerful, 540 degree roundhouse kick.

Kakashi ducked quickly, knowing full well how powerful that maneuver was. After blocking Naruto's follow up hook-kick, Kakashi lashed out with a haymaker to draw first blood, certain that the blonde was overextended from his kicking assault.

However, Naruto, utilizing the momentum from the backlash of his hook-kick, ducked and switched his maneuver into a sweeping kick.

The unpredictable counter caught Kakashi off guard and his feet were swept out from under him, making him land hard on his back. Reacting fast, Kakashi lashed out with an upward side-kick that caught the Uzumaki in the chin and sent him stumbling backwards.

The combatants finally backed off from each other, although only Kakashi was panting.

"Not bad Hatake. It seems that you can fight without that pathetic crutch of a dojutsu, hidden under your hitai-ate." taunted Naruto.

"You know, normally I would've been surprised that you knew that kind of classified information. But for some reason, it's really not that earth-shattering that you're in possession of a Bingo Book, despite not being a Chunin." said Kakashi, deadpanned.

"Well, at least you're learning. Just so we're clear however, you being in possession of a Sharingan doesn't mean squat in this fight. It's just your certification as being a jutsu-stealer in my book." retorted Naruto.

"Who's underestimating who, now? I may have not taken you seriously before, but there's no way you can force me to use the Sharingan. I'd never live it down if some fresh Genin made me pull it out." countered Kakashi.

Naruto rose an eyebrow to Kakashi's declaration, before his face broke out in another savage grin.

"Is that so? Well, we'll soon see about that shall we?" threatened Naruto, his body beginning to glow with blue wisps of chakra once more.

The Uzumaki crouched down to the ground, this time falling on all fours like an animal. The wind blew the pre-teen's sun-kissed hair in his face, obscuring his cerulean-blue eyes.

" _Uh oh… I don't like the feeling of this."_ thought Kakashi, warily.

"As a master of the Sharingan, you must be aware of its weaknesses, correct?" asked Naruto, in an eerie growl.

"Yeah, what about it?" asked Kakashi, not liking where this was going.

The blonde Uzumaki charged forward once again, leaving cracks on the ground and a dust cloud in his wake. This time however, Naruto was moving three times faster than before.

Kakashi's uncovered eye widened in alarm, before he quickly pulled up his hitai-ate to reveal his matured Sharingan, its tomoe whirling at a frantic pace. The man's Sharingan-enhanced reaction time was just barely fast enough to throw up a cross-armed block, which shielded him from Naruto's vicious haymaker.

" _Shit… shit… shit! Where did all that power come from?! Was he holding back this entire time?!"_ thought Kakashi, in increasing incredulity.

The silver-haired Jonin skidded back from the punch, his arms smarting from the force behind the jinchuriki's punch.

"Sharingan wielders really are aggravating opponents to face. Not only can they utilize eye-contact genjutsu and steal ninjutsu by memorizing hand-seals, but they can also predict a shinobi's movements in advance. Luckily, even if said Sharingan-wielder can see the future, if their body isn't conditioned enough to react in time, then that ability is neutralized. And unfortunately for you, I would classify myself as a speed-based fighter." said Naruto, with a smirk.

The blonde Uzumaki's right fist began to glow in a blue aura of chakra, before the jinchuriki charged once more.

" _Not good!"_ thought Kakashi in alarm, before he threw his arms up to block again.

This time however, Naruto's haymaker smashed through Kakashi's guard like it wasn't even there. Breaking out in a savage grin, the jinchuriki followed up with a quick flurry of punches that pummeled the Jonin's face like there was no tomorrow.

After several seconds of intimacy with his fists and the Jonin's face, Naruto finished up with a powerful kick to Kakashi's abdomen.

The silver-haired Jonin reeled from the onslaught and proceeded to tumble and roll across the battlefield until he skidded to stop, sprawled on the ground.

Quickly recovering, Kakashi popped back up to find that his opponent had vanished once again, and looked around crazily to find the blonde jinchuriki.

The Jonin got his request when his cheek was bombarded by another powerful punch from said Uzumaki, sending him rolling once again.

"Oh, come on Kakashi! I know you have more in you than that!" mocked Naruto, before blitzing forward once again.

Preempting the blonde's rush attack, Kakashi jumped up in the air to dodge the rocket that was Uzumaki Naruto. After landing back on the ground, Kakashi side-stepped, ducked, rolled, and cartwheeled like there was no tomorrow to avoid the vicious jinchuriki.

" _Crap, I got to take this to the trees. In an open field like this, I'm a sitting duck."_ thought Kakashi, before 'tactically retreating' into the forest.

"Oh no you don't, Hatake! STAND YOUR GROUND AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" roared Naruto, before pursuing at breakneck speeds.

* * *

A pair of bright green eyes awoke to the shiny glare of the Sun, and a groan was soon heard.

" _Ugh… how long was I out? Wait… SASUKE-KUN!"_ thought Sakura in alarm, her thoughts tracing back to scene she saw before she fell unconscious.

The pinkette rushed to the area where she 'saw' Sasuke die. But there was no sign of anything, no blood, no kunai, no Sasuke.

"Oh, now I remember. That was a genjutsu that sensei pulled on me." thought Sakura.

The girl at least had the decency to blush after falling to a low-level trick like that. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts of embarrassment, she quickly resolved to find Sasuke and give her assistance to help him get the bells.

" _Once he gets the bells, he'll give the other one to me, and then we'll live happily ever after as a two-man team, without that Naruto-baka around to ruin anything."_ thought Sakura, with a chuckle.

Satisfied with her decided course of action, Sakura sprinted out of the bushes to find the object of her affections.

Meanwhile, said Uchiha was struggling furiously to get out of his earthen imprisonment. He had heard the explosion that came from Naruto and Kakashi's battle, and he wanted to know what was going on between the two.

" _I won't let the dobe upstage me! Gotta get out of here and show that lazy Cyclops who's boss!"_ thought Sasuke in fury.

Finally, after another few minutes of struggling, the Uchiha was able to free one arm from the ground, and used it as leverage to push himself out of the ground.

"Finally… I got free…" muttered Sasuke to himself, in between gasps for air.

"Sasuke-kun!" came a shriek from behind the bushes.

That voice only belonged to one person, and one person only.

" _No… no… no… I do not need this right now."_ growled Sasuke, to himself.

Resigning himself to his fate for he was too tired at the moment to flee, Sasuke let the pink-haired banshee embrace him in a suffocating hug.

"Sasuke-kun! Thank goodness you're okay!" yelled Sakura in joy.

"Sakura… let… go…" choked Sasuke.

When the pinkette continued to crush him, either not hearing his command or ignoring it, the Uchiha debated whether he should engulf her in a Fireball and be done with it.

* * *

Kakashi backflipped off of a tree-branch to avoid another rain of shuriken and kunai from the blonde jinchuriki. Three seconds later, the branch on which he once stood was engulfed in a roaring inferno, thanks to the exploding tags attached to Naruto's kunai volley.

" _Seriously, where does he keep all of those?_ " wondered Kakashi, while upside-down in free fall.

The silver-haired Jonin reached into one of his pockets and undid a spool of metal wire, before attaching them to several shuriken. After Kakashi launched the shuriken, the metal wire that was attached wrapped around a thick tree-branch.

Kakashi hefted his lower body upwards and the maneuver allowed him to swing back up into the treetops. Once he sighted Naruto's chakra signature rapidly approaching, the Jonin drew a kunai in a backhand style and descended.

The silver-haired Jonin came down with flying stomp-kick, but the Jinchuriki easily backpedaled out of the way.

"So we're on to bukijutsu, eh? Don't disappoint me then, Hatake." said Naruto, with a smirk.

Kakashi responded by pressing his assault, coming in with horizontal slash that Naruto backed away from. The Jonin followed up with an upward swipe that Naruto bent his head backwards to avoid, and a backhanded stab that was blocked at the forearm and caught at the elbow.

Naruto pushed Kakashi off of him, before unsheathing one of his swords and charging forward. Kakashi parried Naruto's downward slash, but was knocked backwards when the jinchuriki's follow up backhand slash overpowered his guard.

The jinchuriki twirled his sword to build up momentum, before spinning forward for another backhand slash. Kakashi met Naruto's attack and the force of the clash knocked them back from each other. After skidding to a halt, the two shinobi glared at each other before charging once again.

A furious clash of metal was heard and blinding sparks flew as the two combatants duked it out, engaged in a ferocious dance of blades and blood. The shinobi dashed around at breakneck speeds, and slash marks appeared at a rapid pace on tree-trunks and branches, reminders of the epic battle that was taking place.

Kakashi backflipped to avoid a slash that would have severed his head, and pressing his advantage Naruto followed up with a sword thrust. However, the silver-haired Jonin was able to duck under the strike at the last second. The jinchuriki's failed maneuver left him overextended and vulnerable, allowing Kakashi to grab the offending arm and rock the Uzumaki in the abdomen with an elbow, before following up with another elbow to the chin.

The Kyubi jinchuriki staggered backwards in pain, before growling and unsheathing his second sword. Naruto blitzed forward, jumped into the air, and fell into a continuous aerial roll, his katanas rotating in the air like he was a spinning porcupine.

Eyes widening in alarm, Kakashi rolled out of the way quickly before taking off, and Naruto followed right at his heels after landing. With his trap set, the Jonin pivoted 180 degrees on his heel and launched a backhand slash at Naruto's torso. However, the jinchuriki preempted the counterattack and somersaulted into the air, landing behind Kakashi.

The silver-haired Jonin quickly ducked under Naruto's horizontal slash, side-stepped the jinchuriki's subsequent down-slash, and backpedaled from the following up-slash, before taking to the air once more.

Naruto growled, he was really getting fed up with the man's running, and re-sheathed his swords. Once again, he unsealed ten kunai and launched them at the airborne Kakashi, who twisted and turned in the air to avoid the projectiles.

"Those kunai won't hit me Naruto. Why don't you change to another mode of attacking, unless you're not as good as you thought you were." taunted Kakashi, jumping off of another tree-branch to avoid the jinchuriki's projectile volleys.

The silver-haired Jonin's Sharingan eye whirled like clockwork, its ocular powers giving him the ability to avoid or deflect any projectile that came within striking distance. Unknown to him however, some of the projectiles that were thrown weren't aimed at him but flew above the tree-tops instead.

The purposely missthrown shuriken and kunai flew high into the sky, before eventually slowing and arcing downwards, aimed for the area that Naruto was driving Kakashi to.

" _Keep mocking me while you can Kakashi. I've got a little surprise in store for you. Hopefully, I can end this without using any elemental ninjutsu."_ plotted Naruto.

A few seconds later, Kakashi finally entered the area that Naruto had planned for. A large pond boxed in by the thick forest and a thin, grassy beachhead.

Applying chakra to his soles, the silver-haired Jonin floated upon the liquid surface and wondered what the jinchuriki's next move was.

"Well Naruto, anything else you've got in store for me? Or can we end this?" asked Kakashi, stoically.

The silver-haired Jonin's plan was to annoy and eventually infuriate the blond with his constant evading and retreating, causing him to charge in blindly for a decisive blow. This would in effect, cause Naruto to get sloppy and make mistakes, leaving him open to a well-timed Suiton jutsu that would hopefully end the fight.

Never did it cross his mind that Naruto had been playing him for longer than he had been trying to fool the blonde.

Well it did cross his mind, once he heard the unmistakable sound of dozens of shuriken and kunai free falling towards his exact location. Unfortunately for him, the projectiles had explosive tags attached AND were spread out randomly which left very few routes of escape.

" _Alright, this will be tough. But I think I've got it."_ thought Kakashi, tensing for another skillful evasion.

"Yo, Kakashi! I hope you don't think you can escape, because this is only phase one." shouted Naruto, while perched on a tree-branch that overlooked the pond.

The silver-haired Jonin turned to the blonde Uzumaki, wondering what he meant, when his eyes widened in horror as he saw the boy go through a familiar series of hand-seals.

" **Ninpo: Taju Kage Buki no Jutsu. (Ninja Art: Mass Shadow Projectile Technique)** " chanted Naruto.

Almost instantly, the amount of projectiles that were descending on Kakashi changed from several dozen to several thousand. The sky was soon engulfed in a sea of soon to be exploding metal death, and unfortunately for Kakashi, the sheer amount of the projectiles meant that there was nowhere to run.

"CRAP! **Suiton: Suijinheki! (Water Release: Water Encampment Wall)** " countered Kakashi, rapidly rushing through hand-seals.

The **Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Release: Water Encampment Wall)** normally drew upon the reserves of a nearby water source or the air around the user to create a wall of water, but Kakashi's mastery of the nature transformation allowed him to manipulate the water further and morph it into a dome-like defensive structure.

All of this was done in seconds, just quick enough to shield Kakashi from the first round of projectiles that impacted the water dome and then the subsequent explosions. The explosions rained on for an entire minute, relentlessly bombarding the defensive construct. If it weren't for the Jonin's near Kage-level chakra reserves that allowed him continually reform the wall, the explosions would have turned him into charcoal.

* * *

Konoha's last Uchiha valiantly tried to ignore the pink-haired banshee's attempts to get a date with him, and focus on locating Kakashi by following the trail of damaged trees, scorch-marks, and slash-marks.

Now contrary to belief, Sasuke was in fact _not_ gay, even though he seemingly suggested that opinion by his constant rebuffing of his fanclub's advances.

After gaining enough strength and completing his goal of revenge against Itachi, Sasuke indeed had thoughts on procreating with another to rebuild his clan and regain their prestigious reputation as Konoha's strongest clan.

To do that however, he would need to find a powerful and strong-willed kunoichi who could point out his faults and speak her mind. Not some weak, pathetic fangirl who would constantly kiss his ass.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of such thoughts, Sasuke surveyed the landscape trying to find some inkling of where the silver-haired Jonin could be.

That is, until he and Sakura were blown several meters backwards by the concussive force of a massive shockwave.

"AAAHHH!" yelled Sasuke and Sakura as they crashed into a tree-trunk and branch, respectively.

Groaning in pain, the Uchiha slowly picked himself up from the ground and looked in the direction of where the shockwave originated from, before his eyes bulged in utter shock.

" _W...w...what is THAT?!"_ thought Sasuke, in amazement.

Sakura staggered to her feet a few moments after Sasuke, before she too gawked at the sight that captivated her love interest.

The scene that the two Genin stared in awe at was the massive mushroom cloud that plumed from the trees, a few hundred meters ahead of them. The monstrous smoke cloud was the result of an explosion created by Naruto's combination of kunai and shuriken attached with exploding tags and the **Ninpo: Taju Kage Buki no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Mass Shadow Projectile Technique)**.

For such a devastating effect, the process was quite simple. No flashy elemental ninjutsu, kinjutsu (forbidden technique), or kekkei genkai, but some good old-fashioned shinobi equipment and a jonin-level ninja art. It required a good deal of preparation and timing, but the advantages far outweighed the drawbacks.

" _Damn it! What is going on there?! Kakashi is obviously fighting the dobe, but how can Naruto possess enough skill to push Kakashi that far, or even worse, be able to do something of that magnitude?! I am the elite, the genius, the prodigy, and yet the dobe is upstaging me!"_ fumed Sasuke, looking absolutely murderous.

" _How can Naruto-baka be so strong to fight in a battle like that?! That explosion was probably Kakashi's doing, but still! He's the dead-last, he can't be better than me! I'm the Top Kunoichi!"_ thought Sakura, in confusion.

Sasuke growled in fury, before charging full-speed towards the mushroom cloud, determined to find out what the hell was going on.

"Sasuke-kun wait!" cried Sakura, before chasing after the Uchiha like a lovesick puppy.

* * *

After the smoke from the mushroom cloud disappeared, it was replaced by steam that was created by the collision of fire and water. The steam billowed in large amounts from the cooling pond, obscuring the entire area in which Naruto and Kakashi were fighting.

The silver-haired Jonin was kneeling on the pond's surface, panting heavily from the expenditure of his latest technique. While resting, Kakashi made sure to keep a look out for Naruto, for the Uzumaki would most likely attack first.

" _Man... that was a close one. I swear, that kid is going to kill me. I need to land a decisive blow to finish this. Let's analyze. I have the advantage in physical strength since he's not fully grown yet, and experience. But he's got the advantage in speed and agility, plus he's harder to hit since he's smaller than me."_ thought Kakashi.

" _Because of these physical attributes, Naruto has an edge over me in taijutsu, although we're more or less equal in bukijutsu. Aggravatingly, with him being a jinchuriki, genjutsu is practically useless. That leaves ninjutsu. Good for me because that's my specialty, and bad for me because he has tons more chakra than I do at my maximum and I've already used up a fourth of my chakra because of the battle and my enhanced_ _ **Suiton: Suijinheki.**_ " continued Kakashi.

" _I'm gonna have to be smart about this. I'd hope that since Naruto's young and inexperienced, and because he's at such a high level in taijutsu and kenjutsu, that_ _ **Ninpo: Taju Kage Buki no Jutsu**_ _was one of his best and only offensive ninjutsu. Though, with my shitty luck and the fact that he boasts massive chakra levels as a jinchuriki, he's probably a ninjutsu specialist. Really hope that's not the case, but gotta be prepared for anything."_ finished Kakashi, before returning to scouting the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Naruto was standing on a highly elevated tree-branch that was obscured by the leaves. Even though the mist reduced visibility to practically zero, Naruto could still sense Kakashi, thanks to his enhanced sense of smell and chakra sensor abilities.

The blonde jinchuriki was also planning his next move, taking into account the environment, his analysis of Kakashi's abilities, and the Jonin's and his current chakra levels.

" _Damn, I really wanted to end this without having to rely on my Futon, Katon, Raiton, or Fuin techniques. However, the_ _ **Ninpo: Taju Kage Buki no Jutsu**_ _was my best long-range offensive technique for the ninja arts. I could try to overwhelm him with_ _ **Kage Bunshin**_ _, get in close and hammer him with a_ _ **Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion)**_ _, but taijutsu and kenjutsu have already proven indecisive. If he can hold his own against my normal capabilities, then attacking him with weaker versions of myself would prove fruitless."_ thought Naruto.

" **YAWWWN! Ugh… that was a good night's sleep. What's up with you, kit?"** asked Kurama, rising from his groggy stupor.

" _Really, Kurama-sensei? Now you're waking up? What, did the detonation from my exploding kunai bombardment wake you?"_ asked Naruto, incredulously.

He could still not wrap his head around how easily Kurama could sleep through anything. Since the two had become partners, Naruto gave Kurama the ability to utilize his senses, so anything the Uzumaki saw, heard, touched, tasted, and smelled, could be experienced by the biju if he wished. Yet, all the times in which Naruto trained (what I mean is when he blew stuff up) the demon fox was never perturbed.

" **No, you know how much of a deep sleeper I am. I just felt like sleeping in today. So, what's going on?"** asked Kurama, getting serious.

" _I'm fighting Hatake at the moment. The battle's enjoyable, but we are at a stalemate. Taijutsu and Kenjutsu have not yielded any conclusive results, and my exploding tag barrage failed. I don't really want to reveal too much of my abilities because Kakashi will most likely report to the Hokage about the events that transpired here, and I want don't want to have to explain myself more than necessary."_ answered Naruto.

" **Hmm… while that is a solid concern, I think you should just say 'to hell with it' and go all out. If you keep handicapping yourself, this battle will drag out and you give Kakashi more chances to come out on top. Restricting yourself at this point is purposeless, because you've already shown Kakashi that you're not a normal Genin. Throwing in some elemental ninjutsu ain't going to make too much of a difference."** said Kurama, giving his thoughts.

" _You think so? Well, you're normally right about these things. How do you think I should progress?"_ asked Naruto.

" **Relentlessly pound him into the dust with ninjutsu upon ninjutsu. Remember you have so much more chakra and stamina than him that it's not even funny. You can hold off on showing your more powerful fuinjutsu creations if you wish, that's something I'd say keep as an ace in the hole. But everything else is fair game. Besides, it would be hilarious to beat Kakashi in a field where he's supposed to be a specialist."** said Kurama.

" _Hmm. Alright then, let's dance."_ said Naruto, baring his fangs in a feral grin.

" **Yes, let's."** agreed Kurama, sporting a smirk not unlike his jinchuriki.

The blonde Uzumaki moved into action once again, taking a great leap into the air before descending towards the pond where his Jonin adversary was.

Meanwhile, Kakashi paced around the pond, waiting for Naruto to appear so they could end this. The mist from the earlier explosion had finally cleared, visibility back at 100 percent. The silver-haired Jonin got his wish when something crash-landed onto the pond, a large wave of pond water rising in response.

When the water settled, Naruto and Kakashi stared each other down, the love-taps put away and knives out to play.

"So, Naruto? I take it that you are ready for us to end this. Before we continue, I have to say that you are quite the combatant for a fresh Genin." complimented Kakashi.

"You have been a great adversary as well, Kakashi. But this is the end. No more tricks, no more games. I will now crush you with pure, unadulterated **power**." said Naruto, clenching his fist.

"Oh? I've got a few tricks up my sleeve as well, Naruto. It won't be as easy as you think. So, do you agree to move on to a test of ninjutsu?" asked Kakashi, crouching into a fighting stance.

"But of course. What better way to defeat you, than at your own game?" asked Naruto, before raising a fist and engulfing it in an orb of chakra.

" **Futon: Shogeki. (Wind Release: Shock)"** said Naruto, monotone.

The jinchuriki threw a straight punch in Kakashi's direction and once his arm extended fully, a compressed air bullet the size of a soccer ball was fired. The wind bullet flew at incredibly high speeds, traversing the distance between the two combatants almost instantly.

" _Just my freaking luck."_ thought Kakashi in grim acceptance.

The Jonin ducked quickly, allowing the bullet to sail over his head albeit narrowly. Its target missed, the Futon jutsu continued to power forward, drilling through the trunks of three trees before dissipating.

Kakashi turned his attention back to Naruto, only to find the jinchuriki firing more of those air bullets at him.

The silver-haired Jonin zipped around, the bullets narrowly missing his lithe form and either dissipating on the pond or upturning trees and boulders.

After somersaulting in the air to avoid three **Futon: Shogeki** , Kakashi sped through hand-seals to counterattack.

"Try this on for size. **Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu! (Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique)** " countered Kakashi.

The pond water began to swish around rapidly, waves crashing into each other until the surface level started to rise. A short moment later, a twenty meter tall wall of water formed before powering after Naruto, like a mini-tidal wave.

"Hmph. Is that really the best you've got?" asked Naruto, mockingly.

The jinchuriki leaped into the air, sailing over the massive waterfall like it was nothing, before clasping his hands together.

" **Futon: Shogeki Rendan. (Wind Release: Shock Barrage)** " chanted Naruto.

An orb of compressed air formed in between Naruto's hands, pushing them apart, before expanding rapidly until it was as big as the user. Aiming the orb at Kakashi, the Uzumaki released a plethora of **Futon: Shogeki** at the silver-haired Jonin, like a machine gun.

Kakashi quickly turned on his heel and retreated across the pond and into the trees once again, the rapid firing wind bullets impacting the space in which he once stood only seconds after. Water splashed, smoke rose, grass and dirt upturned, and wooden shards and leaves flew, as the **Futon: Shogeki Rendan** carved a swath of destruction hundreds of meters long.

Naruto smirked at the carnage that his technique had wreaked as he landed, Kakashi was really being a helpful test subject.

" **Damn, kit. Is that a new one?"** asked Kurama, whistling in approval of the jinchuriki's latest Futon jutsu.

"Yeah, and unfortunately for Kakashi, I would only classify that as B-Ranked. Hold your applause for when I really let loose." said Naruto, with a feral grin.

" _ **Man, the kit's really getting strong. It's only been four years, but he's already kicking a top Jonin's ass. Maybe he really will be able to help me get my revenge."**_ thought the demon fox, as Naruto chased after Kakashi.

Kurama wasn't the only one to be amazed by Naruto's powerful technique. Sasuke and Sakura had finally arrived just before Naruto let loose the **Futon: Shogeki Rendan** and were rendered absolutely speechless.

" _That… power. That power... should be MINE! How the hell does a clan-less dobe like him possess a jutsu like that?! Once this is all over, I will demand that he to teach it to me!"_ thought Sasuke, seeing red.

Sakura on the other hand looked upon the destruction with stunned horror, believing the 'dead-last' to be some kind of demon in disguise.

The last Uchiha clenched his fists so hard that blood began to seep out, before pursuing the blonde jinchuriki, determined to find out more of Naruto's strength. Sakura herself stood frozen for a couple more moments, before shaking her head to clear her mind.

The pinkette reminded herself of her goal and willed herself to continue on and follow her crush. Hopefully Naruto could weaken Kakashi enough so she and Sasuke could steal the bells, and maybe if she was lucky, she would get to watch the Uzumaki get put in his place while they were at it.

* * *

The silver-haired Jonin grabbed onto a tree-branch before swinging himself upwards. Once the man secured himself by applying chakra to his soles, he began to speed through hand-seals.

" **Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique)** " yelled Kakashi, before placing his pointer and middle finger to the side of his mouth.

Kakashi released a barrage of fireballs at the blonde Uzumaki, but Naruto was a step ahead and backflipped off of the branch he was standing on to evade. Undeterred however, the Jonin simply moved on to another sequence of hand-seals while Naruto was still in an upside-down free fall.

" **Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)** " yelled Kakashi, launching a massive fireball from his mouth to where Naruto would land.

The fireball detonated once it made contact with the ground, engulfing Naruto and an area twenty meters in radius in a powerful inferno. Dozens of trees were lit ablaze as the fire spread which caused Kakashi to panic, the Jonin believing he went too far and turned his prospective student into charcoal.

Well... Kakashi's panic only lasted a second or two because instantly, the majority of the flames that were consuming Training Ground 7's forest were extinguished. And in the epicenter of it all stood an unharmed Uzumaki Naruto.

" _ **Katon: Taisei no Jutsu. (Fire Release: Resistance Technique)**_ " said Naruto, to himself.

The blonde didn't want Kakashi to know that he had more than one elemental nature yet, he would use that to his advantage later. Hopefully, the Jonin would think that he dispelled the flames with a wind jutsu.

" **Futon: Shogeki! (Wind Release: Shock)** " roared the jinchuriki, engulfing his fists in orbs of wind chakra and firing air bullets at Kakashi once again.

Kakashi vertically ran up the truck of the tree-branch he was standing on to evade, desperately trying to think of a way to end this. But it was pretty distracting to come up with a strategy when you were trying to avoid having a bullet hole punched through you.

While twisting and turning in the air to avoid the dangerously fast projectiles, Kakashi ran through hand-seals once more. Hopefully the jutsu would gain him some breathing space.

" **Doton: Doryuheki! (Earth Release: Earth Style Wall)** " roared Kakashi, while slapping his palms on the ground.

Almost instantly a thick, ten meter tall wall of rock sprung from the ground and came to the silver-haired Jonin's defense. Naruto's wind release bullets attacked the defensive structure relentlessly, but despite all the punishment it received, the wall never fell.

" _Alright, that should buy me some time. I'll distract Naruto with a_ _ **Doton: Doryuudan (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Projectile)**_ _and turn the ground into sea of mud. Hopefully, that should immobilize him and I can end this crazy bell test. Got to make this count though, I'm beginning to run out of chakra."_ thought Kakashi, in between breaths of air.

Kakashi winced as the ground shook and his rock wall crumbled. Naruto's wind bullets were frighteningly powerful, it wouldn't be good if he got hit by one of those.

" _Alright, here it goes."_ thought Kakashi, before leaping over his rock wall and speeding through another sequence of hand-seals.

" **Doton: Doryuudan! (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Projectile)** " shouted Kakashi, before he slammed his palms together.

Instantly, a massive earth creation shaped as a majestic winged beast rose from the ground, before it charged the blonde Jinchuriki.

" _Didn't see that coming._ " thought Naruto, before jumping into the air and onto a tree-branch to avoid the massive earth dragon.

Kakashi maneuvered the **Doryuudan** to coil around and then leap into the air to pursue Naruto, all according to plan.

The blonde Uzumaki, oblivious, continued to hop from tree-branch to tree-branch to avoid the jutsu. However, Naruto eventually ran out of trees within close enough proximity to jump on and entered free-fall, the earth dragon right behind him.

" _Now's my chance!"_ thought Kakashi, before entering another chain of hand-seals.

" **Doton: Doryu Taiga! (Earth Release: Earth Flow River)** " yelled Kakashi, before he slammed his palms onto the ground.

Whereas before when Kakashi slapped his hand on the ground, a massive earthen wall sprang up to his defense, now a vast sea of mud erupted from the ground which was expertly placed right where Naruto was going to land.

" _Son of a bitch!"_ thought Naruto in annoyance, as he continued to twist and turn to avoid the **Doryuudan**.

Kakashi had been playing him, just like he did before at the pond. He could almost visualize the Jonin's smug-ass look on his face.

" **Hmph. Looks like he got you good. What are you going to do now?"** asked Kurama, in amusement.

Naruto had gotten cocky in the fight, understandable since he had the advantage for most of it, but now it had come back to bite him in the ass. However, rather than receiving a panicked look from his container at being bested, he instead received a smirk.

" _Just watch."_ answered Naruto, before forming a chakra focusing seal.

As Naruto continued to fall towards the mud river, Kakashi almost started to cheer, pleased that he had finally bested the upstart.

But his pleasure grinded to halt almost immediately, when Naruto kicked sideways into the air and rocketed away from the mud river like a bullet. The blonde Jinchuriki kicked into the air once more, this time downwards, blasting himself up into the sky and avoiding the tree he nearly collided into.

Once Naruto's upward momentum slowed to a halt, and before gravity could bring him down again, the Uzumaki began to slowly kick into the air but this time more controlled and at timed intervals, allowing him to maintain some kind of pseudo-flight.

" **Futon: Ugoki. (Wind Release: Motion)** " said Naruto, in a satisfied smirk.

Meanwhile, everyone's favorite Uchiha was furiously ranting in his head, thoroughly pissed off at how outclassed he was compared to Naruto.

" _HE… CAN… FLY! HE CAN FUCKING FLY! What is going on here!"_ ranted Sasuke, fictional steam coming out of his ears.

Sakura on the other hand, couldn't even describe what she was feeling in words, utterly stupefied at how powerful Naruto was.

While Kakashi… heh heh poor Kakashi… wanted to collapse to the ground and slam his fist on the ground in frustration. The Jonin couldn't believe his eyes anymore.

" _This is just not fair. I'm the Jonin and he's the Genin, so why is Kami making this so difficult on me?! I wasn't half as strong as Naruto when I was his age, and I was regarded as a prodigy, a genius. Yet this year's dead-last is making sport of me._ " thought Kakashi, comical tears flowing down his face.

" **You can fly?! When did you make this jutsu?! When were you going to tell me?!"** asked Kurama, dumbfounded as well.

That jutsu was news to the biju as well.

" _I thought of the technique yesterday, but I didn't actually try it out until now. Guess it works, huh?"_ answered Naruto, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

" **Gee, you think?"** asked Kurama, sarcastically.

" _Ok, I have had enough of this fight. I'm going for the win, right here, right now."_ said Naruto, regaining his serious and stoic countenance.

" **Do tell on how you plan on accomplishing that. Kakashi's still in the fight as far as I'm concerned, and while you have jutsus with which you can KO him with, it'll be one hell of a struggle for you to actually land a hit."** said Kurama, questioningly.

" _We'll see about that."_ said Naruto, before descending to the ground.

Kakashi was truly drawing a blank on how to proceed now. Naruto was a persistent foe who had a unique ability (he can fly) to avoid any trap he could set. Trying to blatantly overpower him was stupid as well as ineffective as the boy's chakra reserves left his in dust, not to talk of him running close to empty.

The Jonin couldn't just go and use his prized **Raikiri (Lightning Blade)** on the Uzumaki, because A: the **Raikiri** was an S-Rank assassination jutsu and he would be in hot water with the Hokage for killing a Genin, and B: that was assuming he could even hit Naruto.

" _Goddamn, I really am one foot in the grave with this team."_ thought Kakashi, cynically.

"Alright, Kakashi. That was a good attempt, but as expected it failed. Now before we continue, I'm offering a chance for you to surrender. Doing so will save you a whole lot of pain. Do you accept?" asked Naruto, arms crossed over his chest.

The silver-haired Jonin mulled the idea in his head for a few moments. Taking into consideration his laid-back (more like lazy-ass) attitude, giving up would have been so much easier for everyone. But for once in his adult life, Kakashi decided to not take the easy road in life.

"Sorry, Naruto. But I'd never live it down if a fresh Genin forced me to reveal my Sharingan and then still beat me. We're going to have to do this the hard way." said Kakashi, sliding back into his fighting stance.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at Kakashi's response, before breaking out into a quiet chuckle.

"So be it… you poor fool." said Naruto, before forming a one-handed seal.

The blonde jinchuriki was engulfed in a blue aura of chakra, before said source of energy split into two and created a Naruto clone to his right.

" **Futon: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. (Wind Release: Shadow Clone Technique)** " said Naruto, in monotone.

The wind clone and Naruto nodded to each other, as if they were agreeing to a plan of some sorts, before the clone drew its twin katanas and rushed Kakashi.

" _He's going back to bukijutsu?"_ thought Kakashi in confusion, before pulling out a kunai in a backhand grip.

The Naruto wind clone and Kakashi engaged in another furious clash of swordplay. The two spinned, twisted, turned, and jumped around each other to gain an advantage and strike an unprotected vital area. Blinding sparks flew as the two combatants duked it out at breakneck speeds, and slash marks appeared at a rapid pace on tree-trunks and branches, reminders of the shinobi who once fought there.

Kakashi took to the air to avoid the Naruto clone's frenzied attacks, although the clone easily pursued. Deflecting and parrying the clone's attacks, Kakashi almost didn't see a sight that would be vital to whether he walked away from the fight healthy or in a stretcher.

The real Naruto utilized his **Futon: Ugoki** to follow the two combatants in the air, and once he was in a good range he smirked before clasping his hands together and cocking his head back, gathering an insane amount of wind chakra in his lungs.

" **Futon: Kamikaze Gekido! (Wind Release: Rage of the Divine Wind)"** bellowed Naruto, before releasing a roar that shook the world to its core.

A massive blast of pressurized wind chakra erupted from the blonde Jinchuriki's mouth, and barreled towards Kakashi, his clone had already dispelled once it heard him call out his technique. With the force of a compressed tornado, the **Futon: Kamikaze Gekido** slammed into Kakashi, cutting into his skin and ripping his Jonin vest and combat undergarments to shreds.

Even though the silver-haired Jonin saw the attack coming at the last second, the jutsu was too fast and struck too wide of an area for him to dodge. All he could do was put his arms up to guard his face and hope for the best.

Upon the wind release technique's detonation, the forest of Training Field 7 was engulfed in a massive dome of pressurized air, with buffeting winds tearing apart trees and boulders and uprooting grass and dirt.

The trees where Sasuke and Sakura hid in to spectate the fight couldn't possibly hold up against the power of the attack, and because of which quickly disintegrated.

"SASUKE-KUN!" yelled Sakura in fear, before she was blown away by the concussive force from the explosion.

Sasuke covered his face with his arms and valiantly tried to hold his ground for as long as possible, but eventually he too was blasted back by the fury of the shockwave.

The other newly graduated Genin and their Jonin sensei heard the explosion and saw the smoke rise from Training Ground 7 as well. But the Jonin believing it to be just Kakashi and his usual antics, decided to ignore the phenomenon and continued with their tests.

" _Ha! Didn't I tell you that I would finish this once and for all, Kurama-sensei? Look at that, I didn't even think that my attack was actually that powerful!"_ said Naruto, in amazement.

The demon fox didn't respond to Naruto's gloating but instead surveyed the devastation through his container's eyes.

The results were… frightening.

If Kurama didn't know any better, he'd say that Naruto was the Ichibi rather than Shukaku.

An area with the radius of a football field was completely leveled, absolutely nothing remained.

The trees… gone.

The rocks… gone.

The grass… gone.

Kakashi? Hmm… well if he couldn't survive that, then his Bingo Book status was overrated.

Sakura picked herself up from the ground of which she was carelessly flung to. Dusting herself off, she took a good look around before freaking out at how much destruction one person had caused.

Yep, Naruto was definitely a demon in her book.

Sasuke could only glare heatedly at the blonde Uzumaki floating in the air, all this power that Naruto has displayed should be his as the dobe didn't have a purpose for which to use such power, or so he believed. The last Uchiha soon smirked however, when he began to mull an idea in his head over and over again, an idea where he could force the jinchuriki to reveal his secrets by order of the council.

Dumbass.

A minute or two later, a bloodied hand erupted from the barren ground. The hand clawed its way to the surface before grabbing a tree root and pulling as hard as it could. After a couple seconds, the endeavor led to a moderately injured Kakashi pulling himself out of the ground.

"Kakashi-sensei!" screamed Sakura in fright and worry.

Sakura rushed over to the silver-haired Jonin with Sasuke surprisingly following, and upon getting a closer look on him they quickly learned how badly in shape he was.

The man's Jonin vest was non-existent and his shirt almost completely shredded with only a strip of it hanging on his shoulder. Kakashi's finger-less gloves and hitai-ate were gone, although his mask had somehow endured all of the punishment. His pants were torn but still wearable, but his body was riddled with bruises and cuts that bled profusely.

All and all, the silver-haired Jonin had not come out of the blast unscathed.

"I warned you to surrender, did I not Kakashi?" asked an all too familiar voice.

The Jonin in question's heart hitched in his chest upon hearing the voice, but when he tried to turn around, his neck came into contact with a cold and sharp piece of metal.

"Don't move." said Naruto stoically, while holding a katana to Kakashi's neck.

" _How did he get down here so fast? Last I saw, he was floating several dozen meters in the air!"_ thought Sasuke, incredulously.

Sakura could only fall on her butt, quaking in fear at Naruto's presence.

"Well, it looks like I won Kakashi. I gotta say though, you gave me quite a fight. Now, before you make some bullshit rule to have us fail, let me tell you that I already knew that the purpose of this test was to accomplish teamwork. If you still want a showing of such an action, here you go Sasuke and Sakura." said Naruto, reaching into his pocket and grabbing two tiny metal bells, before tossing them the Uchiha and pinkette in question.

Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura's eyes all widened in shock as Naruto handed his teammates the prize of the test.

"How?" asked Kakashi, stupefied.

"I stole the bells at the beginning of our fight, right after I struck you in the chin with a palm-strike. In the time it took you to recover and refocus your attention on me, I was easily able to pocket the items. If you're wondering why I continued on with the test even after procuring the bells, it's because I wanted to test my mettle against a top Jonin, and as I said you didn't disappoint." answered Naruto.

Having said his piece, the blonde jinchuriki removed his katana from Kakashi's neck before re-sheathing it.

"Today was quite a day, wouldn't you say Kakashi- _taicho_? Well, I'll leave you to your contemplation on how you got your ass kicked by a mere Genin. See ya tomorrow." said Naruto, before disappearing in a **Shunshin**.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! I just want to answer some questions that might pop-up after you read this.

1) How the hell did Kakashi survive?

Kakashi used a **Doton: Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu** at the last second to escape a mortal injury, but he was still hit by the initial impact and going underground didn't completely mitigate the explosion.

2) Did I overpower Naruto too much?

Yes, but that's the point of this story. For Naruto to be so elite that people will think twice before messing with him. Don't worry, he still can't beat a Kage just yet.

3) How can Naruto fly?

He's not actually flying, but expelling wind chakra from the soles of his feet to propel him upwards. If anyone has watched One Piece, I based this ability off of CP9's Geppo.

4) Why didn't I display all of Naruto's abilities?

I like being a troll. No seriously, I didn't want to reveal everything at once, but don't worry you'll see Naruto's Katon, Raiton, and Fuin techniques soon. Very soon.


	4. Threat Prevention

**Chapter 4: Threat Prevention**

Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Uzumaki Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. He resigns himself to the fate that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be accepted as a human, and that he has no happy ending. Instead, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Konoha wants a demon, oh he'll give them a demon all right. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto

* * *

Author's Note: Hey guys, another chapter is coming your way. First of all, I want to thank you all for the warm reception I got from last chapter. I got more reviews from that one chapter than the other two combined! Don't stop there though, keep the reviews coming. Now, whereas last chapter was the actual fight between Naruto and Kakashi, this chapter focuses on the reactions and results. Don't worry though, there's a lot of action mixed in as well and next chapter will be the start of the Wave Arc. Enjoy.

* * *

"Keep the miso ramen coming, Teuchi-jiji! I haven't even begun to quell my hunger!" yelled Naruto, in between mouthfuls of noodles.

"Hold on there Naruto-kun, I'm cooking as fast as I can. Give it a minute or two and I'll have another bowl out." said Teuchi, in good humor.

Naruto decided to go to Ichiraku Ramen for a hearty lunch after succeeding in completing Kakashi's famed Bell test. The jinchuriki hummed happily while he slurped down bowl after bowl of ramen, basking in the glory of dishing out a royal ass-kicking to one of Konoha's top Jonin.

" **I gotta hand it to you, kit. That was a fine can of whoop-ass you opened on that silver-haired scarecrow. I couldn't be more proud."** said Kurama, trying to hold back his tears.

" _Kurama-sensei, why are you crying? What are you on about now?"_ asked the blond-haired boy, with a semi-annoyed sigh.

" **It's just... I knew you were strong cause I trained you and all, but to manhandle Kakashi like that... it's just so beautiful. On top of that, you can fly kit! I've got the best jinchuriki ever! Suck on that Gyuki!"** cried Kurama, bursting in tears.

 _Said eight-tailed beast, who was slumbering in peace in the mindscape of his jinchuriki somewhere in Kumogakure, sneezed upon Kurama's boast. Startled, the ox-octopus hybrid wondered who in the hell was talking about him of all people._

Meanwhile, the blonde Uzumaki sat in horror as he listened to his master weep.

" _... Kurama-sensei… the freakin' Kyubi no Yoko, strongest of the biju and bane of the shinobi world… can cry?"_ thought Naruto in alarm, while listening to the demon fox's completely unexpected outburst of tears.

" **OF COURSE I CAN, DUMBASS!"** roared the enraged tailed beast, reverting back to his normal countenance.

" _Whew… now that's the Kurama I know!"_ laughed the Uzumaki, to himself.

" **So, what now?"** asked Kurama, regaining his composure.

" _I'm a bit tired. Even though I didn't have to go all out against Kakashi, he still made me put in effort. I'm just going to walk around for a bit."_ answered Naruto, before placing money on the counter of the ramen stand to pay for his meal.

Feeling satisfied after downing twenty bowls of Ichiraku ramen, the blonde jinchuriki decided to just wander the streets of Konoha for a while. Ignoring the cold, hateful glares from civilians and shinobi alike, Naruto just tried to enjoy the scenery and clear his mind from today's interesting turn of events.

Meanwhile, the Uchiha everybody loved to hate was trying to locate his blonde teammate, while desperately trying to shake off his number one fangirl: Haruno Sakura. The annoying pink-haired banshee had been hounding him ever since they left the Training Ground, and he seriously wanted to just end her with a **Katon: Gokakyu** and be done with it.

" _Let me find him soon before I do something that I may or may not regret."_ thought Sasuke, his irritation levels rising.

A few minutes later, upon reaching Konoha's market square, the demon fox's acute olfactory senses picked up a scent through Naruto's nose, several dozen meters ahead.

" **Hmm… do you sense that?"** asked Kurama.

" _Sense what?"_ asked Naruto, in confusion.

" **I sense the rage of a retard with a stick up his ass a few dozen meters ahead. I think it's emo-boy."** answered the demon fox.

" _Which one? We have a lot of those in this god-forsaken village."_ said Naruto, wincing at the thought.

" **The Uchiha."** answered Kurama, bluntly.

" _Oh… THAT emo-boy. What does he want?"_ asked Naruto in annoyance.

" **Don't know, but it gets worse. Pinky's with him."** replied Kurama.

" _That's a disaster waiting to happen. Can we avoid them?"_ asked Naruto.

" **Nope, our change in direction will alert the Uchiha. Could've done so earlier, if I had picked up the scent a couple meters back. But you do realize that you can just kill them, right?"** said Kurama, raising an eyebrow at his jinchuriki's hesitation.

" _Nah, that won't work… there's hundreds of people here in the area. More specifically, witnesses."_ answered Naruto, pinching the bridge of his nose in aggravation.

" **Does that matter?"** asked Kurama.

" _Yes… no... maybe? As unfortunate as it is, they're my teammates. And that means I have to keep them alive until we can take the Chunin exams. So, I might as well just deal with it now."_ replied Naruto, sighing.

Resigning himself to his fate, the blonde jinchuriki composed himself before walking forward to face the bane of his existence: a prissy Uchiha.

"Dobe!" growled Sasuke, angrily.

"What the hell do you want, Uchiha? I have better things to do than converse with maggots." said Naruto, monotone.

"HEY! Don't talk to Sasuke-kun like that, dead-last!" growled Sakura with a vein popping in her forehead.

Her tough-guy act wasn't very convincing however, since she was hiding behind her crush with quivering legs.

"Call me that again, and no medic in the world will be able to fix what I do to you." snarled the Uzumaki while releasing a little bit of his killing intent.

Feeling the effects almost instantly, the pinkette scampered farther behind the Uchiha, fearing for her health.

"What the hell made you so strong!? You, the dead-last clown that everyone wipes their feet on! The one the Academy instructors give the shittiest kunais to! The one who pulls stupid pranks every day! The one that failed every test! That kind of power doesn't belong to you, an untalented clan-less punk! So why don't you make yourself useful and teach me all those jutsu you used against Kakashi, or else." ranted Sasuke, getting in Naruto's face.

Snorting at the Uchiha's posturing, the Uzumaki faced the raven-haired youth with a glare that surpassed anything Sasuke could ever dream of coming up with.

"Or else, what?" asked Naruto, in a dangerously calm voice.

At first, Sasuke was taken aback by the Uzumaki's display of silent rage, before reminding himself of who he was and what he was after. Then, the Uchiha actually had the audacity to grab the jinchuriki by the collar before giving his threat.

"Or else, I'll go to the council and have them force you. Anything I ask, they'll do for me and even your undeserved strength won't save you." threatened Sasuke.

The Uchiha immediately regretted this action, because a second later he found himself lying on the ground before he could even react. The noise from their argument began to draw the villagers from their daily shopping, and a crowd formed around the three Genin.

"If you want me to finish what Itachi started all those years ago and if you want to be able to go home to whatever shitty little hole you crawled from, you will never... ever… even if the devil possesses you... touch me like that again. Do… you... understand?" growled Naruto, his eyes morphing from cerulean blue to red slits.

The amount of killing intent that the jinchuriki released was so intense, that the crowd and Sakura wisely backed up several steps. The Uchiha tried to pick himself up from the ground, but found his resolve melting away at the sheer intensity of the rage he felt emanating from the Uzumaki.

"I promise you, a spoiled little shit like yourself can never even dream of going through the shit I went through to gain this kind of power. A spoiled little shit like you, would never last a second living a life like mine. I worked my ass off for years, so I can take this sandal and shove it up the ass of anyone who tries to talk to me like you just did ever again. My old self might have taken it, but now? Hmph, now you better be prepared to back up the bullshit you're spouting." finished Naruto.

" **Gaki."** said Kurama.

" _Yeah?"_ asked Naruto.

" **Make him suffer. Death is too easy for him."** growled Kurama, baring his fangs.

" _Like I said earlier, I'm too tired to be dealing with this crap. No, this little punk doesn't deserve the privilege of wasting anymore of my time than he already has."_ said the blonde, before picking the Uchiha up from the ground by his collar and lifting him to eye-level.

"P…put me down!" growled Sasuke, regaining his arrogant attitude.

"You want down?" asked Naruto, calmly.

The Uchiha moved to answer, when before he knew it, Naruto was smashing him into the ground left and right like a rag-doll.

"I'll show you down!" snarled Naruto, before throwing the Uchiha into a fence.

The force of the impact caused Sasuke to smash through the wooden barrier, before landing into grove of thorn bushes. The raven-haired youth never stood a chance and quickly fell unconscious.

" **HA! The little bastard is gonna be picking thorns from his ass for hours!"** roared Kurama in laughter, slamming his fist on the ground repeatedly.

Naruto just shook his head in annoyance and disappointment, the Uchiha conked out way too quickly for him to even get warmed up. Thoroughly pissed off, the blonde Uzumaki decided to leave the scene before he did anything he was going to regret later.

"Sasuke-kun!" screamed Sakura, running to the Uchiha's aid.

While the pinkette rushed as fast as her legs could take her to check up on her crush, the crowd dispersed, disappointed that they weren't going to see their 'prized' Uchiha beat up the 'demon brat'.

"What was that for, you monster?!" yelled Sakura angrily, upon seeing Sasuke's injured state.

The blonde jinchuriki merely stopped moving, not even bothering to face the ant that dared to disturb him.

"If the princess can't take a punch, then he shouldn't be picking fights. Especially when the one he's challenging is a sleeping dragon." answered Naruto, while his eyes changed back to its normal state.

Having said his piece, the jinchuriki disappeared from the scene with a **Shunshin**.

* * *

At around 2:00 pm, the various Jonin of Konoha assembled in the Hokage's office to report the results of their Genin tests. The elite ninja whispered to each other, placing bets and cracking jokes on how long it would take for Kakashi to arrive.

The jokes and laughter were caught in their throats however, when the silver-haired Jonin in question arrived about fifteen minutes late.

The majority of Kakashi's upper body and the bottom half of his face was wrapped in white medical tape, and the man walked into the room with a limp, slight but still noticeable.

"Damn, Kakashi. Did you fall off of a ravine, or what?" asked Sarutobi Asuma, raising an eyebrow at his friend's disheveled appearance.

Kakashi answered him with one of his famous eye-smiles, but he quickly winced in pain from the gesture. His entire body felt like giving out on him, and he would much rather be at home recovering than out in public with his injuries on display.

The Sandaime Hokage's eyes widened slightly at Kakashi's appearance, but he didn't prod because it would probably be revealed with the Jonin's report. Instead, the aging Hokage decided to move the meeting along.

"Ahem. Thank you all for being here today. Starting with the Jonin sensei of team 1, state the status of your team. If your team passed, stay here for further orders, if not then you are dismissed." said Hiruzen, with an authoritative tone.

After the Jonin sensei had reported about the failures of their teams and were dismissed, it was Kakashi's turn.

"Team seven passed." said the silver-haired Jonin.

Asuma and Kurenai, the remaining Jonin in the Hokage's office, stared at the man disbelievingly. It was well known that Kakashi never passed a team, so it seemed that there was more to his injuries than they had thought.

"Team eight passed." said Kurenai, getting out of her shock.

Team nine was still in circulation this year, under the command of Maito Gai, so Asuma went next.

"Team ten passed." said the younger Sarutobi.

"Okay, so that means we have three new teams this year. Very good. Now, you can continue with the overview of your Genin tests." said Hiruzen.

"Ladies first." said Kakashi to Kurenai, who rolled her eyes.

"Alright then, Inuzuka Kiba has a solid foundation in his clan techniques, but he is very brash and thick-headed, constantly charging in without any regard to safety or strategy. I will have to work with him on not rushing headlong into battle without a plan, and figuring out his opponents strengths and weaknesses. He could also use some work on chakra control and genjutsu detection." began Kurenai.

"Aburame Shino needs to increase his chakra reserves to better access his combination attacks with his insects and work on improving his taijutsu skills since he cannot use many ninjutsu without harming his insect colony. However, he has a very firm grasp on strategy and knows how to work on a team. It was his quick thinking and planning that pulled the team through." continued Kurenai.

"Hyuga Hinata needs to overcome the belief that she will fail that has been instilled in her by her clan. If she could do that, then she would be even stronger than she already is. She can utilize her Byakugan at an acceptable level for someone her age, but I have a feeling that something is off with her taijutsu. It doesn't seem to fit her. She has a good grasp on dispelling genjutsu and is very good natured, getting along easily with her teammates." finished Kurenai.

"I see. This team has the potential to become a legendary tracking/infiltration unit. You have a team that consists of three clan heirs who have all had additional training in their clan's techniques. Be creative in how you train them, and if possible have them ready for the Chunin exams in six months. It would look very good on Konoha, if we had some clan heirs participate." said Hiruzen.

"Okay, I guess Kakashi wants to go last since he obviously had a very difficult team." said Asuma, to which the silver-haired Jonin nodded his thanks.

"Nara Shikamaru is your typical, lazy Nara. He worked well with Ino and Chouji, but that is to be expected of an Ino-Shika-Cho trio. Shikamaru needs to get motivated. His techniques are okay, he has mastery of the Academy jutsu, and he used one of his clan's secret techniques to capture me in the test. However, his taijutsu skills and just plain physical abilities are pathetic through and through." began Asuma.

"Akimichi Chouji followed Shikamaru's plan to complete the mission with the least amount of work. He was in a supportive role, which is bad for an Ino-Shika-Cho trio because the Akimichi is supposed to be the powerhouse close-combat fighter. He needs to expand his ninjutsu arsenal, improve the holes in his taijutsu, learn how to dispel genjutsu, and increase his speed." continued Asuma.

"Yamanaka Ino is a problem, no matter how you look at it. While she co-operated with her teammates, she constantly complained about not being on a team with Uchiha Sasuke and about the lack of motivation of her teammates. Her physical abilities are abysmal, even worse than Shikamaru's, and her stamina levels are almost non-existent. The only way she helped with the test was when Shikamaru caught me with his Shadow Possession jutsu, she took over my body with her clan's mind transfer technique. Besides that, all she had were the Academy techniques, which she didn't utilize well." finished Asuma.

"Hmm, well it seems that you've got your work cut out for you then. Alright, get your team in gear. You have the same directions as Kurenai, which also hold true for Kakashi. The Chunin exams. Get their individual skills up to par with the standards, although it's good that you have worked with Naras and Akimichis before, since you know how to handle them. You will have them do at least one D-rank mission a week so they can get used to each other, and come together as a unit. This generation has a lot of shinobi with the potential to become something great. Okay Kakashi, your report is up next." said Hiruzen.

The other remaining Jonin stared at their silver-haired colleague with interest, they had finally gotten to the climax of the meeting.

"I will start with Haruno Sakura. It seems that only Kurenai didn't get a fangirl on her team. But your fangirl Asuma, despite her various faults, at least has some form of competency and a willingness to work with both her teammates. Sakura is weak, there is no other way to say it. She doesn't have any individual skills other than the ones she learned at the Academy, and she accomplished absolutely nothing on my Genin test. She only chased after Sasuke wherever he went, following the Uchiha like a lovesick puppy. The reports at the Academy told me that she had an aptitude for genjutsu, yet she fainted after I cast a simple D-rank one on her." began Kakashi.

"Which one?" asked Kurenai.

Serving as Konoha's resident Genjutsu specialist since the desertion of Uchiha Itachi, the female Jonin had a good idea on the level of genjutsu that a freshly graduated Academy student should be able to break out of.

" **Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu.** (Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique)" answered Kakashi, with an embarrassed sigh.

"What? But that is a standard one that should have been used at the Academy to train students in detecting and dispelling genjutsu." said Kurenai, in utter disbelief.

"I know, that was the reason I used it. I wanted to see if the Academy reports were correct. I have the impression that they are not. I would advise you to check up on the teaching that the Academy instructors did this school year. The only Genin that passed were those of clan heritage, and Sakura because her team pulled her through. I have a suspicion that the teachers in their attempt to sabotage my student Uzumaki Naruto, did more damage than we initially thought." said Kakashi.

The Hokage nodded in agreement. This was troubling news indeed. Normally, a handful of students of civilian background passed the Genin test, but now because of sabotage in the learning institutions there was going to be a shortage in manpower if something wasn't done.

"Next up is Uchiha Sasuke. The boy is very skilled for a fresh out of the Academy Genin, and in my opinion he's already close to the strength barrier for Chunin. Sasuke possesses sound tactical skills, mastery of the Academy ninjutsu, well-developed physical attributes and intermediate proficiency in the Uchiha interceptor taijutsu, and at least one C-rank Katon ninjutsu. However, he has a serious attitude problem. His obsession with defeating Itachi, led him to completely disregard his teammates. He tried to get the bells from me on his own, and even after failing he didn't make an effort to try and formulate a plan with anyone of his teammates." continued Kakashi.

"Then we have my third student, Uzumaki Naruto. To answer all your questions about why I look like I had a run-in with a missing nin, Naruto is the reason for my injuries. The majority of the bell test was spent between the two of us duking it out, which ended in my loss. And unfortunately, despite all of my efforts to disprove it, I have come to the conclusion that Naruto was holding back." finished Kakashi.

The three other ninja present, gaped at the silver-haired Jonin like he was telling them that Konoha would be destroyed by a meteor tomorrow.

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. Naruto, a GENIN and a freshly graduated one at that, is the reason why you look like a pathetic excuse for a mummy." said Asuma, with wide unbelieving eyes.

"Yes." answered Kakashi, feeling his pride dropping rapidly by the second.

"But, how is that even possible? The last time we had an Academy graduate with Jonin-level skill was with Itachi. And since the disaster with him, we eased up with the Academy curriculum so we wouldn't have such a disparity within our ranks. If Naruto is as good as you say, then why didn't he try to graduate earlier?" asked Kurenai, trying to wrap her head around Kakashi's report.

The Hokage didn't say anything at the moment, but he nodded for the silver-haired Jonin to continue with his report.

"Alright, this is going to be a doozy, but hold your questions for the end of my report. After first hand experience with Naruto's capabilities… * _Shivers in remembrance of the horrid memory*_... I believe that quite frankly, Naruto is the most powerful shinobi of Konoha, barring the Hokage of course. Though I believe, given a few years time, that won't be the case at all. The Uzumaki possesses high Jonin level taijutsu skills that are similar to the Inuzuka clan and physical abilities that puts him even above Gai. He also wields high Jonin level kenjutsu skills that most likely surpasses Asuma's, an immunity to Genjutsu, immense strategic and tactical knowledge as well as exceptional awareness of his surroundings, advanced knowledge and application of combat fuinjutsu, and above Kage-level reserves that allows him to utilize powerful and draining ninjutsu with impunity. I also believe him to be an advanced sensor-type shinobi." began Kakashi.

"This would sound great and all, as it seems we have a shinobi with the skills to lead the next generation, but it's not the case at all. Naruto hates… no _despises_ all of Konoha to the highest degree. His introduction to the team was, and I quote, "Uzumaki Naruto, twelve years old. My likes are training, the Ichirakus, and a certain person. I hate the rest of Konoha's population. My ambition, to become the strongest this world has ever seen and stick a middle finger to this shithole of a village in the process." Naruto has most likely suffered needless abuse from the civilian population, neglect from the shinobi population, and sabotage in the Academy. Because of this, the boy is a major flight risk, and the funny thing is that with all of his strength he could have successfully evaded the ANBU ages ago. Yet, he's still here for some unknown reason." continued Kakashi.

"For why Naruto didn't graduate earlier, it's because he was smart enough to realize how deep the hatred for him ran through. If I were him, I'd be probably think, "Hmm… if I graduate now, when I'm only at Genin level strength and I get a Jonin-sensei who hates my guts, he'll probably fail my team just out of spite and since I'm not strong enough to do anything about it, I'm right back where I started. And now back as an Academy student, I'm under the jurisdiction of the civilian council once again, who will now take steps to curb my growth because I'm stronger than what is allowed. So, I think I'll just continue to hide my strength and pretend to be stupid, until I gain enough strength where I can pass my Genin test, regardless of whether my Jonin-sensei hates me or not." Hokage-sama, I don't mean to be rude, but we are dealing with a ticking time bomb right now. If the right steps aren't taken, then Naruto will run, and I fear nothing will save us from the wrath of an enraged jinchuriki, especially one of the Kyubi." finished Kakashi, sweating at the implications of his gathered info.

"Oh my god…" gasped Hiruzen, deathly pale.

The aged Hokage staggered backwards, before flopping on his chair with his head hidden in his face.

This was just so horribly wrong on so many different levels.

With the boy's heritage, Naruto shouldn't even _think_ of running. Then, there's the fact that Naruto COULD have run all these years if he wanted to! And to despise all of Konoha, including him? It took all of the Hokage's might to not have a heart attack, right then and there.

"Oi Kakashi, please tell me that this is a joke." said Asuma, laughing nervously.

The silver-haired Jonin in question gave a frightened eye-smile, but he did not refute his claim.

"Crap, you're actually serious. Kami save us all." said Asuma, beginning to sweat buckets.

Kurenai on the other hand was too stunned to even say anything. While, she didn't outright despise Naruto, she didn't like him either. Even though she understood the intricacies of fuinjutsu and realized that Naruto was not the Kyubi, it was still hard for her to like the boy when he housed the demon that killed her father.

But now she was hearing that said jinchuriki could mop the floor with anyone of them, even on a bad day, and that her prized art of genjutsu was worthless on him.

Not the best of news to tell anybody.

"We have to do something, Hokage-sama!" yelled Kurenai, regaining her voice.

"And what do you suppose I do, Kurenai?" asked Hiruzen, his voice in a defeatist tone.

The poor man was so tired, just so tired. He had already served his term as Hokage and fought in several wars, he should have been enjoying his retirement with his wife Biwako. But instead the heavens had cursed him, and he as a widower was stuck leading a weakened village that was traumatized by an immense death toll which included the Yondaime Hokage himself.

Then, this had to happen.

Hiruzen swore to himself, it was times like this that really tried him and made him vulnerable enough to actually consider giving the Hokage hat to Danzo.

"We should bring Naruto into the T&I department (Torture and Investigation) and scan him to see if he's mentally fit to resume active duty. He's way too dangerous to be left unchecked!" pleaded Kurenai, trying hard to sound like the voice of reason.

"Are you insane?! Did you not listen to the report I just gave you?! Antagonize Naruto, and this whole thing blows up in our face! As I said, Naruto was HOLDING BACK against me when we fought! If there is any possibility that Naruto could access the Kyubi's chakra, which I suspect seeing how well he trained himself, would you actually want to fight against that?!" asked Kakashi incredulously.

"Well, what do you suppose we do then? Promote him to Jonin?" asked Kurenai, with a heated glare.

"Did I say that? The best way to deal with this is keep him as a Genin and try to open Naruto up to his classmates. Promoting him now is not the way to go, seeing how he disregards authority. When the Chunin exams come up, we can observe his changes and promote him accordingly." answered Kakashi, matching Kurenai's glare.

"That's nice and all, but you are forgetting one thing Kakashi. Keeping Naruto as a Genin screws up the balance of the Genin teams horrendously. You already have Sasuke, the Rookie of the Year, adding Naruto to that mix makes your team ridiculously overpowered. That isn't fair to our teams and the other countries who participate in our Chunin exams would call foul play, believing Naruto to be a Jonin in disguise to make us look better." said Asuma, adding his input.

As the three Jonin bickered among themselves like spoiled children not getting their way, Hiruzen tried to think of how to resolve the situation.

Kurenai had some valid points, and if he were anyone else, he would have agreed wholeheartedly. But unlike most, the aged Hokage actually cared for Naruto, even if the jinchuriki didn't trust him anymore.

He could understand Naruto's anger at the village and the Uzumaki's newfound distrust of him. He was the Hokage of all of Konoha, and while he cared for the jinchuriki, he had to represent the wants of the village, which unfortunately meant hurting the boy in the process.

Hurting Naruto even more by trying to effectively end his shinobi career before it even started however, was a line that he was not willing to cross. Konoha was built on the ideals that they would never leave a man behind, no matter what. Ruining someone's life just because they _might_ be a threat in the future betrayed that.

Kakashi's proposal of keeping Naruto as a Genin and then trying to endear him to at least his classmates was the most appealing to him. While Asuma raised a great point about the teams being unbalanced, promoting Naruto now would only bolster the boy's rebellious streak and that would be disastrous.

"Enough. I have made my decision, so cease your arguing at once." growled Hiruzen, re-entering his Hokage mode.

The three arguing Jonin froze like they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, before about facing in embarrassment.

"Kurenai, you have made valid points but your idea poses the risk of antagonizing Naruto, a risk I am not willing to take. Kakashi, I trust your judgement on this and since Naruto is your student I will adopt your positioning on this. Asuma, your concerns are noted but I believe Kakashi's idea to be the best way forward. If the idea of the teams being unbalanced bothers you so much still, well at least you have your inspiration for building up your team for the Chunin exams. Remember, even though Team 7 is stronger by far, they're all still Konoha ninja so the probability of Naruto attacking your team just to advance aren't as high as you think." said Hiruzen, his judgment final.

Kurenai and Asuma sighed but nodded in acceptance, while Kakashi gave an eye-smile in thanks.

"However, and it pains me to say so, we must prepare for the possibility of Naruto ever turning on us. So Kakashi, while you primary goal is to bring the light out of Naruto, your secondary goal is to gather intel on his strengths, weakness, and abilities while you're still his sensei. So using the data you gained from your fight, how would you describe Naruto's fighting style and what are his abilities?" asked Hiruzen.

The silver-haired Jonin paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, before answering.

"Taking into consideration all of Uzumaki Naruto's strengths, I would classify Naruto right now as a ninjutsu specialist. However, that could change because as I said before, he held back against me and probably didn't showcase all of his techniques. He is an exceptionally aggressive fighter, relentlessly attacking his opponent and not giving them an inch of breathing space. His immense chakra reserves and ridiculous levels of stamina allows him to utilize this method to the maximum. Naruto obviously has mastery of the Academy techniques, save for the **Bunshin** jutsu because of his chakra reserves, and he knows **Shunshin**. He's also knowledgeable of the **Ninpo: Kage Bunshin** and **Ninpo: Kage Buki** techniques, and can most likely perform the **Taju** and **Daibakuha** variants." began Kakashi, to which Hiruzen nodded.

"Naruto made extensive use of **Futon** (Wind Release) nature change ninjutsu in the latter parts of our fight, using it in various ways such as launching piercing bullets, enhancing his **Kage Bunshin** , releasing massive blasts of buffeting winds, and even maneuvering in the air for prolonged periods of time. However, I was able to deduce with the Sharingan that Naruto is in possession of not one, but three elemental affinities." said Kakashi, before he was interrupted by Kurenai.

"How were you able to figure that out?" asked the genjutsu specialist.

"The Sharingan is able to see chakra with the naked eye as different colors. While the Sharingan doesn't see the chakra network as precisely as the Byakugan does, there is a reason why the Sharingan allows someone to deduce what kind of ninjutsu someone uses, before copying it. There are five primary colors of chakra seen by the Sharingan, White for **Futon** (Wind Release), Red for **Katon** (Fire Release), Yellow for **Raiton** (Lightning Release), Blue for **Suiton** (Water Release), and Brown for **Doton** (Earth Release). Each person's chakra is either one or a fusion of these colors, depending on the strength and mastery of their elemental affinities. Naruto's chakra was approximately 50 percent white giving him a primary **Futon** affinity, 30 percent red giving him a secondary **Katon** affinity, and 20 percent yellow giving him a tertiary **Raiton** affinity." answered Kakashi.

"Three elemental affinities at the age of 12? Damn, that kid is going places." said Asuma, lightheartedly.

"Yes, and let's hope that when he's 'going places', he doing it for Konoha's sake. Alright, keep up the good work Kakashi. Report to me at the end of every week for updates on Naruto's mental condition, his progress with befriending others, and any new techniques he displays. Dismissed." said Hiruzen, before grabbing his pipe and lighting it.

* * *

A few weeks had soon passed in Konoha, and Naruto experienced his trial by fire of what it means to be a shinobi… by doing chores.

The blonde jinchuriki sighed in annoyance, as he reminisced information that he read about Konoha's mission system. It was one of the few useful pieces of information that he ever received from an Academy textbook, most of the things that were taught in the Academy's curriculum he already knew or were worthless theoretical jargon.

In the organised society of the Elemental Countries and some of the surrounding nations, shinobi were given missions depending on their rank. The missions are categorized in five ranks, based on the mission's possible danger or level of importance.

D-rank missions, the lowest level tasks available to shinobi village, were usually created within the village and are assigned to Genin fresh from the Academy. D-ranks posed almost no risk to the shinobi's life and they usually consisted of odd jobs like farming and babysitting work. The reward for a D-rank mission was between five thousand and fifty thousand ryo.

C-rank missions were usually assigned to more experienced Genin and/or Chunin level shinobi. These missions had very little to no chance of combat against other shinobi. These kinds of missions included guarding people against bandits and/or highwaymen, background investigations, eliminating or capturing bandits or thieves, and capturing or suppressing wild animals. The reward for a C-rank mission was between fifty thousand and 100 thousand ryo.

B-rank missions were usually assigned to experienced Chunin, Tokubetsu Jonin, or inexperienced ANBU. These kinds of missions were anticipated to involve combat with other ninja. Examples included escorting government officials, espionage, or just plain combat missions. The reward for a B-rank mission was between 100 thousand and 200 thousand ryo.

A-rank missions were only assigned to Jonin and regular ANBU, and these types of missions only included village or state level matters and trends. These missions included guarding VIPs or suppressing ninja forces. The reward for an A-rank mission was between two hundred thousand and a million ryo.

Then there were S-rank missions, assigned only to experienced Jonin, the ANBU Black Ops, and even the Kage themselves, the elite of the elite within a shinobi village. Examples included assassinating VIPs, and transporting highly classified documents. The reward for an S-rank mission easily went into the millions of ryo.

As a freshly graduated Genin shinobi, he was stuck doing those glorified chores that were called 'D-rank missions', until they had done enough in requirement for the Chunin exams. Team 7 had already completed two dozen of these, and he felt like smashing his brains out on a brick wall.

Chopping wood for farming families...

Walking dogs for the Inuzuka clan...

Weeding gardens for elderly couples...

Painting fences for the village of Konoha...

Capturing and _recapturing_ that DAMN CAT!

Well, at least he wasn't the one doing the missions, but a **Kage Bunshin**. The Uzumaki had known about the horrible tales of D-rank missions from his observations of Genin cells in the past. Already several steps ahead of his unknowing classmates, he sent a grumbling **Kage Bunshin** to deal with his team and their assigned chores.

Speaking of his team, Naruto could only snort in amusement at what he had to deal with, or rather what his clone had to deal with, whenever he met up with Team 7.

He would arrive at Training Ground 7, or what was left of it after his fight with Kakashi, and spend between 30 minutes and two hours waiting for his 'sensei'. No matter what he tried, he couldn't predict Kakashi's schedule, and never wanting to be late, he always arrived too early for the silver-haired Jonin.

While he waited for Kakashi, he would also have to listen to Sasuke's aggravating rants about 'Uchiha pride this' and 'clan-less dobes that' and demands that he fork over his jutsus, before he got fed up and put the bastard in his place. Then, after Sakura had assaulted his ears with her banshee shriek, she would rush over to the unconscious Uchiha and try to rouse the arrogant brat from his stupor.

Seriously, why couldn't those two imbeciles learn?

What was even more annoying was when Kakashi did arrive, he would use every chance he could get to try and learn more about him and strike up a conversation. Most likely, Kakashi reported about their fight to the Hokage, who promptly had a heart attack before telling the Jonin to try to befriend him so he didn't kill them all.

Well, it was too late for that… twelve years too late for that.

If he ever went on a killing spree, the only people he would avert his wrath from would be the Ichirakus.

Everyone else could go to hell, for all he cared.

" _Well, since my_ _ **Kage Bunshin**_ _is done for the day, it's safe to go outside and not risk someone seeing two of me."_ thought Naruto, before getting up from the couch in the bedroom of his bunker.

" **Oi, kit. What are you up to now?"** asked Kurama, getting up from one of his afternoon naps.

" _I'm heading to the Forest of Death. I have some new techniques that I want to try out. How was your nap?"_ asked Naruto, mentally.

" **Meh, it was alright. Right now, I'm in the mood to destroy things. Think I'm going to go practice my Bijudama for a bit."** answered Kurama, before moving to a suitable area within Naruto's mindscape.

" _Cool. Tell me what you come up with when you're done."_ said Naruto, while exiting the entrance to his bunker.

Once the blonde jinchuriki was fully situated above ground, he disappeared with a **Shunshin** en route to Konoha's most notorious Training Ground.

* * *

The blonde jinchuriki re-appeared in front the massive metallic gates of Training Ground 44, also known as 'The Forest of Death'. Serving as the largest and furthest out of Konoha's training grounds, the land was also used as the stage two arena for whenever Konoha hosted the Chunin exams.

The massive metallic fence that surrounded the training field's perimeter had 44 gates equally spaced around it; these were probably where the shinobi who participated in the Chunin exams would enter from. Inside of the training field was a river, the forest itself, and a tower located in the center, all amounting to the forest's radius of about ten kilometers. Within the forest are several large and deadly creatures such as leeches, tigers, and bears.

A dangerous place, which was the kind of place that he liked.

" **Futon: Ugoki. (Wind Release: Motion)** " said Naruto, before a gust of wind erupted from his soles and he was blasted upwards.

The Uzumaki leaped over the man-made barrier like it was no great feat, before landing on the ground on the other side.

" _Now that that's done with."_ thought Naruto, before he began to sway his arms back and forth, like he was handling whips.

That soon became the case however, when flames erupted from the blonde jinchuriki's hands and morphed into a ten-meter long form of said weapon.

" **Katon: Ressho. (Fire Release: Laceration)** " said Naruto, before lashing out with his whips and bifurcating two trees in a single blow.

Naruto continued to swing his flame whips about in some kind of fluid dance, felling trees and splitting boulders that were unfortunate enough to be in his path.

Moving on, the Uzumaki swung his whips upward and severed several massive branches that could easily crush a human from their tree trunks. Naruto smirked as he saw the branches descend on him, before clasping his hands together to summon his chakra and then placing them on the ground.

" **Katon: Sokui Hashira! (Fire Release: Heavenward Tower)** " roared Naruto, before an arc of flames appeared around him, swelling in size rapidly.

After several seconds of expanding in width, the arc of flames erupted upwards like an active volcano. The falling branches were no match, and were quickly incinerated from the ferocity of the jutsu.

Then, Naruto slid into a horse stance and placed his right fist in his left palm, before fire-natured chakra began to swirl around the conjoined appendages at a quickening pace.

"First, concentrate all latent chakra into my fist." said Naruto to himself, deep in concentration.

The fire chakra seemed to respond to Naruto's will, because after it molded itself into an orb it quickly expanded until it was about half the size of the jinchuriki.

"Second, condense the chakra as much as possible." continued Naruto.

Following his command, the orb of flame condensed until it only surrounded Naruto's fist. The resulting opposite force created from the endeavor was so great, that the ground cracked underneath the jinchuriki's sandals.

"Third, send the enemy into oblivion! **Katon: Ryuoken! (Fire Release: Dragon King Fist)** " roared Naruto, before launching a massive column of flames from his fist.

The powerful column of flames, shaped as the head of the dragon, plowed through a large portion of the forest, either knocking aside or incinerating anything in its path before it finally detonated.

An explosion equal in intensity to that caused by Naruto's **Futon: Kamikaze Gekido** brought the Training Ground to its knees, and only a barren crater was left in its wake.

" _Not a bad test run."_ thought Naruto, as a he jumped onto a tree branch that was untouched by the explosion.

After surveying the destruction caused by his latest technique, the blonde jinchuriki made to leave the scene when he heard the familiar sound of a kunai flying in the air.

A kunai that was flying at him.

" **BEHIND YOU, KIT!"** roared Kurama, noticing the incoming projectile as well.

Needing no further warning, the blonde Uzumaki quickly side-stepped and grabbed the kunai before it could sail past him.

" _Who has the balls…"_ began Naruto in annoyance, turning towards the source.

The jinchuriki's inner ranting was interrupted when a barrage of kunai and shuriken headed towards him. Growling, Naruto drew one of his katanas from his back before proceeding to deflect the projectiles with ease.

However, he was forced to **Shunshin** away to a nearby tree-branch when the unknown attacker threw two kunai with exploding tags at his previous location.

Avoiding the concurring explosion, Naruto spotted movement within a series of trees about a hundred meters ahead of him. The blonde Uzumaki smirked, before using the **Futon: Ugoki** to propel himself forward at mach speed and tackle his unlucky attacker.

The two shinobi tumbled and rolled down tree-branches as they struggled for dominance, before breaking apart from each other to land gracefully on the ground.

Now that his life wasn't in immediate danger, the Uzumaki was given enough breathing space to discern the identity of his attacker.

The enemy shinobi who Naruto had presumed to be a _he_ was actually a _she_.

And damn… she was quite the sight to behold.

The kunoichi was garbed in a rather provocative netted bodysuit that revealed enough skin to be deemed as rather obscene. Over that indecent garment, she wore a short leather skirt that at least managed to obscure her most private places, a beige trenchcoat that reached her shins, and a hitai-ate on her forehead. The young woman's irises were a very distinctive yellowish brown with no visible pupils.

Still, whatever allure she might have possessed was overshadowed by her audacity to attack him in an uninhabited forest.

"Not too shabby, brat. It seems the rumors about you were somewhat true after all." said the kunoichi with a smirk.

"Mitarashi Anko. Tell me, what madness has possessed you to attack me in the middle of nowhere? Do you have a death wish?" asked Naruto, not at all amused.

The kunoichi gave the jinchuriki a serpentine grin that would have unnerved any lesser man, before vanishing in the blink of an eye and pressing a kunai to his throat with practiced ease.

"Now, now gaki. You might be good, but don't get arrogant. You're not at the top of the food chain yet. I highly doubt that all of the fuss that the Hokage made about you is true. You have some skills, but nothing a Jonin that would actually take you seriously can't handle." mocked Anko, whispering in his ear.

"Well, sorry to break it to you. But you 'serious Jonin' aren't anything special." said a voice from behind her.

Shocked beyond all recognition, Anko tried to turn around to face the speaker when the tables turned and she felt the blade of a katana at her neck.

"Don't move." replied Naruto with a bored yawn, despite the fact that he held Anko's life within the palm of his hand.

The 'Naruto' that she had a kunai pressed against turned to face her and gave her a shit-eating grin, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

"Well, well, it looks like you've got me. What are you going to do to me now?" asked Anko, in a sultry voice.

"You can't distract me with sexual innuendo. Tell me what it is that you want, or else." said Naruto, unperturbed by the older kunoichi's mind games.

"Man, you're no fun. If you must know, the Forest of Death is a restricted training ground that few have access to on a regular basis. Catching you here, I decided to mess around a bit to see if the rumors were true." answered Anko.

Detecting no change in heartbeat or any other phenomenon that would prove deception, the blonde jinchuriki removed the blade from Anko's neck.

"I would recommend that you not try that again. You're lucky that I decided to talk first rather than pulverize." said Naruto, releasing a portion of his killing intent for good measure.

Said 'portion' of Naruto's killing was actually so powerful, that it knocked anything the kunoichi had felt in her life out of the ballpark. Sweating a little in seldom showed fear, Anko nodded slowly in confirmation.

Satisfied that he got his point across, the blonde jinchuriki made his way out of the forest, wondering to himself how what was supposed to be a simple training exercise had turned into this.

" _I really hope that I don't have to deal with this bullshit everytime I come across a Jonin."_ thought Naruto.

" **With your shitty luck, I wouldn't hold my breath."** said Kurama, coming out of his silence.

Naruto grumbled in aggravation, but he did not refute his biju's claim.


	5. Journey to the Land of Waves

**Chapter 5: Journey to the Land of Waves**

Summary: After enduring years and years of abuse for longer than he can remember, Uzumaki Naruto finally decides that he has had enough. He resigns himself to the fate that no matter how hard he tries, he will never be accepted as a human, and that he has no happy ending. Instead, he makes a deal with the demon to become the most powerful shinobi in history and make the village regret all the suffering they have caused him. Konoha wants a demon, oh he'll give them a demon all right. Wind, Fire, & Lightning Affinity Naruto/Fuinjutsu Naruto/Powerful, Smart, & Dark Naruto

* * *

Author's Note: Hello readers, I'm back with another chapter and not just any chapter, it's the start of the Wave Arc. Get ready for some great fights and this Naruto's first exposure to the outside world. I'll probably have the Wave Arc done in 2-3 chapters, maybe 4, then we'll move on to the Chunin exams arc and that's were things will start picking up. Enjoy and GIVE REVIEWS! Chapter 3 recieved a lot of reception for which I'm grateful, but the reception for Chapter 4 was lackluster. I can understand because it was kind of a filler chapter, so let's see what happens with this.

* * *

Two months had soon passed since the formation of Team Seven, however if one took a closer look at the tension that surrounded the trio of Genin, they would have believed that the team had been commissioned only two hours prior.

Sasuke still hated Naruto and disliked Sakura.

Sakura still worshiped Sasuke and feared Naruto.

Naruto still wished that Sasuke and Sakura would suffer the most painful of deaths a thousand times over.

And poor, poor, Kakashi was caught in the middle of it all.

The silver-haired Jonin was trying his damned hardest to keep his team from falling apart, or rather keeping Naruto from killing his other two teammates.

The horribly dysfunctional team was standing in front of the Hokage's office, and Iruka was there helping the elderly shinobi take care of his rampant paperwork.

"Alright then, Team 7. There are several D-rank missions that are available for you. You can paint an elderly couple's house, walk the Inuzuka's dogs, mow the lawns of the Training Fields, or re-capture the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat, Tora, ag-" began the Sandaime, before he was cut off by Naruto.

"Screw that bullshit. I refuse to search for that damned cat again. If I find it, I will kill it, simple as that." said Naruto, his annoyance rising at the mention of the accursed animal.

"I'm going to have to agree with the dobe on this one." said Sasuke, as much as it irked him to see eye to eye with the Uzumaki.

"Yeah! We need a higher ranked mission!" yelled Sakura, supportive of her crush as always.

"You brats, who the hell do you think you are?! Settle down and show some respect for Hokage-sama! Besides, you've only been out of the Academy for two months, you aren't ready for higher ranked missions." shouted Iruka, with a vein popping out.

Naruto merely turned to the scar-faced Chunin and gave him a glare that said, "If you want to die, say that again." which caused the man in question to gulp audibly.

"I'll settle for that C-rank mission in the scroll that you're trying to hide, Hokage-sama." said Naruto, catching the elderly shinobi red-handed.

Sighing at being busted, the aged shinobi tossed the scroll to Kakashi before giving his permission.

"Very well, Naruto-kun." said Hiruzen.

"Hokage-sama, please see reason! Fresh Genin can't handle C-rank missions." complained Iruka, trying to make his leader see reason.

"The Uchiha and Haruno may not be prepared, but I sure as hell am. In case you've forgotten, I've already defeated Hatake-sensei in battle before." said Naruto.

"What was that, dobe?!" growled Sasuke, once again portraying his inability to learn that you do not antagonize a sleeping dragon.

Sakura mimicked Sasuke's threatening growl, although it was a pathetic attempt.

"Sasuke-kun could hand you your ass any day of the week, Naruto-baka!" screeched Sakura.

Meanwhile, the silver-haired Jonin's head dropped in shame at the reminder of the fated day.

" _Why did he have to bring that up again?"_ thought Kakashi, in embarrassment.

The blonde-haired jinchuriki turned to his "teammates" with a venomous snarl. It was time to deal with the annoying pests, right here and right now.

"Listen up, you pathetic excuses for a shinobi. You don't like me, and I sure as hell hate you. The difference between us however, is that I can end your pathetic lives with the utmost ease at anytime and anywhere, while you two simpletons couldn't even give me the slightest of scratches, even if I let you. So why don't you do us all a favor, and sit your asses down, shut your fucking mouths, and let the _real_ shinobi talk." growled Naruto, his ire at its peak.

Sakura quickly shrank back in fear, while Sasuke clenched his fists so hard that he nearly drew blood.

" _Who does this fucking commoner think he is? You dare to call me, an Uchiha, pathetic?"_ thought Sasuke angrily.

Not even the worst enemies of the Uchiha clan had dared to go that far.

Sasuke was about to charge forward and foolishly attack his blonde-haired teammate, when he felt a firm grip on his shoulder.

The young Uchiha looked up and saw Kakashi shaking his head, with a serious expression.

"Don't do it, Sasuke. Remember what happened the last times. Think before you act." whispered Kakashi, in a stern tone.

"Hmph. You'd do well to remember that, _second-best_." sneered Naruto, with a triumphant and infuriating smirk.

His blood boiling at the insult, Sasuke was about to attack again. However, Kakashi squeezed down on his shoulder once more and the Uchiha reluctantly decided to back down.

For the time being.

"Ahem. Now that that little distraction has been taken care of, your mission is to escort a master bridge builder to the Land of Waves. You may come in now, Tazuna-san." said Hiruzen, clearing his throat.

The door to the Hokage's office swung open, and a drunken old man stumbled in while chugging down large gulps of sake.

The master bridge builder glanced at the shinobi who were supposed to act as his bodyguards, before snorting in disapproval.

"These are my escorts? I paid good money and all I get is a trio of milk-sucking brats and a porn-reading scarecrow? These children look like they'll be killed five minutes into a fight, especially the emo princess." mocked Tazuna, while pointing at Sasuke.

Said Uchiha snarled in rage, before charging the bridge builder. But he didn't get too far before Kakashi restrained him in a full nelson.

"Maa, maa, Sasuke. No attacking the clients, it's bad for business." said Kakashi, trying to calm his student.

While Kakashi was holding Sasuke, Sakura was free to launch her verbal rebuttal.

"How dare you call Sasuke-kun an emo princess!" roared Sakura, before charging the bridge builder as well, ready to unleash her feminine fury on the hapless man.

Her rage power didn't get her very far, because she was hanging upside down all of a sudden and facing Naruto's disdainful sneer.

"Enough, you useless girl. Quit acting like a bitch to anyone who doesn't worship Sasuke like you do. Besides, what use is anger if you're too weak to harness it?" growled Naruto, before unceremoniously dropping Sakura to the floor who was almost in tears.

"Naruto, that was uncalled for." said Kakashi sternly, although he completely agreed with the Uzumaki's reasoning.

It was nice to know that at least one of his students listened to him, which was ironic since Naruto was supposed to be the most difficult of them.

"No, the situation calls for more, but we do not have the time. I don't want her tears to make her more useless than she already is. But you are at fault here as well, sensei. If you taught her something every once in awhile, maybe she wouldn't be so pathetic… probably." said Naruto, angrily.

This was the angriest that anyone had seen Naruto, normally he was calm, cool, and collected.

" _He must really hate that cat."_ thought all the adult shinobi in the room.

Seeing that the discussion had changed from its original purpose, Sarutobi dismissed Team 7 before anymore arguments could break out.

Once the five had exited the Hokage's office, Kakashi told everyone to meet at the village gates at 8:00 the next morning, before they split off to tend to their own devices.

* * *

The next morning, Sakura and Sasuke, along with a sober Tazuna, were waiting for their sensei and teammate at Konoha's front gate.

"There both late! I can't believe it!" screamed Sakura.

The two surrounding males wisely took a step back from the raging fangirl.

" **Raiton: Ugoki. (Lightning Release: Motion)"** said Naruto, appearing out of nowhere in a flash of electricity.

Sakura and Tazuna jumped at the jinchuriki's flashy move, while Sasuke flinched before glaring.

"You. What was that technique?" demanded Sasuke.

" **Raiton: Ugoki.** It's a high-speed movement technique utilizing the traveling properties of lightning." answered Naruto, seeing no harm in humoring the Uchiha with information.

"Teach it to me." said Sasuke.

And there it was.

"No." replied Naruto, evenly.

"Excuse me?" growled Sasuke.

No one refused an Uchiha's demands!

"I said no. Are you as deaf as you are talentless? You can't learn this technique, because you do not have a trained enough **Raiton** affinity to utilize it." repeated Naruto, before counting down the seconds to when Kakashi would arrive.

Three… two… one…

"Yo." greeted Kakashi, arriving in a standard **Shunshin**.

"What's an affinity?" asked Sasuke, ignoring his sensei's arrival.

"It's a nature transformation that your chakra network is most aligned with. For example, Kakashi's elemental affinities are **Raiton** as a primary and **Suiton** as a secondary." answered Naruto.

Sakura decided to butt into the conversation before Sasuke could demand anything else.

"Um… what's my elemental affinity?" asked Sakura.

Naruto stared at her for a couple of seconds, creeping her out before he spoke.

"Your elemental affinity is **Doton**. And before you ask Uchiha, your elemental affinities are **Raiton** as a primary and **Katon** as a secondary." answered Naruto, without even batting an eye.

Kakashi stared at Naruto wide-eyed as the Uzumaki deduced his own and his teammates' affinities in a matter of seconds. Sensing elemental affinities without chakra paper was supposed to be impossible except for the most experienced of Kages, yet here he was spouting them out like he was some kind of a mystic.

Sasuke on the other hand, seemed satisfied with his blonde-haired teammate's answer, resolving to ask Kakashi to help him train up his affinities to defeat Naruto and eventually Itachi.

But one person wasn't satisfied.

"What are your affinities, Naruto?" asked Sakura.

Kakashi turned to look at his student in question as well. He already knew the answer thanks to his Sharingan, but he wondered whether Naruto would be willing to enlighten his teammates.

Naruto deliberated mentally for a couple of seconds, before shrugging and answering the pink-haired kunoichi.

" **Futon** is my primary, **Katon** is my secondary, and **Raiton** is my tertiary." said Naruto, before heading past the group and out of the gates, ready to start the mission.

Kakashi and Tazuna followed, while Sakura and Sasuke stared in shock at the blonde's statement of possessing three affinities, before shaking off their surprise and following after the three.

* * *

Team Seven and Tazuna made camp about five miles from where they were supposed to catch a boat to cross the river to Wave Country. Sakura and Tazuna were exhausted from all of the walking and they promptly fell asleep.

Sasuke was barely awake, but the prideful Uchiha forced himself to stay up. Kakashi and Naruto didn't seem tired in the least, so they would most likely talk to pass the time. Even Naruto had to get bored at some point, so he waited and pretended to be asleep.

He was hoping to find out more information on his blonde-haired teammate, specifically weaknesses. They might even talk about techniques. But, he should have known that this wouldn't happen due to Naruto's secretive nature. The Uzumaki would just give little tidbits of information, things that weren't important in the long run, but would leave you wanting to know more.

Both Kakashi and Sasuke got the feeling that Naruto was just taunting them with the information that he did give. Taunting them with things that they had no hope of learning. Telling them that he knew much more than they did, and would continue to learn while they were kept in the dark… or the light, depending on your view.

As it's said... knowledge is power.

Naruto took to sleeping in a tree, while Kakashi sat next to the campfire with everyone else. They were still in the territory of the Land of Fire, so the only shinobi that were likely to show up were the patrol ANBU.

Sasuke stayed awake for about half an hour more, but once it became apparent that Naruto wasn't going to say anything, he quickly succumbed to sleep.

Right after that occurred, Naruto spoke.

"Now that the Uchiha has stopped trying to eavesdrop, there's something Tazuna isn't telling us." said Naruto.

Kakashi sighed at the lengths the Uzumaki went to spite Sasuke, before agreeing.

"You think so too? Yes, there's more to this mission than meets the eye. Look underneath the underneath." said Kakashi.

"Indeed, sensei. I do hope that we encounter someone worth our time." said Naruto, with a bloodthirsty grin.

"Careful what you wish for." said Kakashi, a little freaked out by his student's smile.

"Oh? You of all people should know how this world works. If you want something to happen, it won't, but if you don't want something to happen, it will and at the worst possible time. If I hadn't said anything, we probably would have had a pair of S-rank missing-nin after us by tomorrow. The fact that I said something means that they'll probably only be B-ranked… you know maybe I should have kept quiet. Oh well, we'll see what tomorrow brings." said Naruto, before slipping into a light sleep.

Kakashi spared Naruto one last glance before he too went to sleep.

" _He sounds just like Itachi."_ thought the silver-haired Jonin, before turning in for the night.

* * *

Kakashi awoke with a yawn and rubbed his eyes… eye. Then, he looked around camp and saw that everything was intact and everyone was still there.

The sound of Kakashi yawning woke up Sasuke and he yawned as well. He then felt a presence next to him and looked to his right. The Uchiha almost screamed in terror when he saw Sakura's pink hair. Somehow, the kunoichi had rolled out of her sleeping bag and had been stopped by his body.

The Uchiha heard muffled giggling, before turning to his sensei who looked like he was close to laughing his ass off.

Sasuke glared at the silver-haired Jonin before mouthing the words, "Help me."

Kakashi just shook his head. Sasuke rose his eyebrow and Kakashi pointed at Sakura. The silver-haired Jonin put his hands together like he was praying, then tilted them sideways and laid his head on them like he was sleeping. Then the man shook his head again.

It took a couple of seconds for Sasuke to figure out what his sensei's gestures meant, but when it hit him he turned and glared at Sakura's "sleeping" form.

"Let go of me." said Sasuke, in annoyance.

Sakura's eyes opened and she pouted.

"But, Sasuke-kuuuunnn…" whined Sakura.

When Sasuke didn't respond, the kunoichi reluctantly let go of the Uchiha.

"Fine, be that way." said Sakura, before she turned and glared at her sensei who was smiling innocently.

"Good morning, Sakura!" greeted Kakashi, causing Sakura's glare to intensify.

" _It would have been a good morning if you hadn't interfered!"_ snarled Sakura in her thoughts.

"Good morning, Sasuke!" greeted Kakashi.

"Hn." was the Uchiha's response.

"Good morning, Naruto!" finished Kakashi.

The Uzumaki in question slowly turned his head to face his sensei.

"What exactly, is so good about it?" asked Naruto, monotonously.

"Nothing different from other mornings, I suppose." said Kakashi, shrugging.

"For me? No. I'm used to waking up in a tree, on a mission with people that I hate." snorted Naruto, the sarcasm ever present in his tone.

"You're not a morning person, are you?" asked Kakashi with a sweatdrop.

"What was your first clue?" answered Naruto.

"Did you even sleep at all last night?" asked Kakashi.

"I don't sleep, I wait." answered Naruto, before jumping off the tree he was lying on.

It was after this that Tazuna woke up and once they packed up camp, the group of five was off again. About a mile from where the boat dockings were, the team came a across a puddle. Sasuke, Sakura, and Tazuna didn't think anything of it but the Jonin-level shinobi who accompanied them sure did.

" **Kit, do you feel that?"** asked Kurama, making his presence known to his jinchuriki for the first time during the mission.

" _Yeah, there's a low-Chunin level genjutsu around the puddle. I feel a pathetic killing intent emanating from there, probably two mid-Chunin level shinobi at best. Sigh, well beggars can't be choosers."_ mentally responded Naruto, in disappointment.

After the group passed the puddle, two figures dressed in black and white camouflage pants and tattered cloaks arose from the water. They both had spiky black hair, they wore gas masks, and they wielded wickedly clawed gauntlets on opposing arms that were connected with a chain made from interlocking shuriken blades. They also had horned forehead protectors with the Hidden Mist symbol engraved on it, but there was a slash that went across it, signifying their status as nuke-nin from Kirigakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Mist.

One of the shinobi stood on the other's arm, like a bird. Then, he was flung at the team of Konoha-nin and the bridge builder. The duo quickly wrapped the chain around Kakashi, before yanking hard and slicing the silver-haired Jonin to pieces.

"One down…" chuckled both ex-Mist nin.

Naruto didn't even flinch at his sensei's dismemberment, but he did smirk when he saw the remains of the silver-haired Jonin's **Kawarimi** substitution that were disguised by an amateur **Henge** transformation.

Kakashi really was a sneaky and conniving bastard. The lazy asshole was probably hiding in a bush and observing the scene, most likely wanting to see how his team would react to an enemy encounter for the first time.

Oh well, less competent shinobi around meant more blood for him.

Sakura, on the other hand, screamed in horror at the bloody chunks of meat that were the remains of her sensei. Sasuke's eyes widened and his heartbeat sped up rapidly as he tried to keep the cool guy act up.

The two Kiri nuke-nin nodded to each other, before charging at Sakura and preparing to rip her to shreds with their poison tipped claws.

Sakura froze in absolute fear and fell to her knees in despair, before covering her face with her arms and hoping for the end to be swift and painless.

Nothing happened however, and after a couple of seconds she slowly lowered arms to see why she wasn't dead.

The pink-haired kunoichi promptly gasped in a myriad of emotions, once she saw the cause.

Her blonde-haired teammate was standing protectively in front of her with his katanas drawn, while two of his **Kage Bunshin** held the enemy shinobi in choke-holds. The Kiri nuke-nin writhed furiously in the clones' grips, but the **Kage Bunshin** 's grasps were firm making it clear that the duo weren't going anywhere soon. The shuriken chain that they had used to tear apart Kakashi was on the ground and split in dozens of pieces.

"So tell me. What exactly are the **Oni Kyodai** (Demon Brothers) of the Hidden Mist doing in Land of Fire territory?" interrogated Naruto, who sheathed his katanas after slicing the **Oni Kyodai** 's bladed chain to bits.

"What the hell? How do you know who we are? You're way too young to be anything other than a Genin." muttered one of the brothers, while gasping for air.

The blonde Uzumaki snorted before pointing at the brother that his **Kage Bunshin** on the left was holding.

"I know a lot about you fools, in fact. You with the gauntlet on your right arm, you're the older brother Gozu. And you, with the gauntlet on your left arm, you're the younger brother Meizu. You two along with several others defected from Kirigakure about five years ago after your failed assassination attempt against the Yondaime Mizukage. So, I assume that you two along with your leader, Momochi Zabuza, are in Wave Country, correct?" asked Naruto, nonchalantly.

Everyone present gaped at the jinchuriki, amazed at his knowledge.

"How do you know so much, kid?" asked Gozu, struggling to break free of the Naruto clone's grip.

Naruto shrugged like it was no big deal.

"I've memorized every name in the Bingo Book as well as the offenses that got them there. I even have copies delivered from other countries and villages. You two, Zabuza, and Hoshigaki Kisame, hold the four highest danger levels for the Kirigakure section. I've got to say however, for a couple of B-rank nuke-nin, you guys are complete pushovers." said Naruto.

The brothers bristled at Naruto's insults, but squeezes from the clones who were choke-holding them immediately rendered the two nuke-nin silent.

"Now, tell me what you were after that would make you stupid enough to cross into Land of Fire territory. While you're at it, I'd also like to know where Zabuza is located, and if he has any other accomplices." demanded Naruto.

"Hmph, you think you can insult us and then expect us to reveal our secrets to you? Fuck that, I'd rather die like a man with some dignity than go out as someone who sold out his comrades." snarled Meizu.

"So do your worst, but you ain't getting anything out of us." taunted Gozu.

Naruto rose an eyebrow at the two's stubbornness, before shaking his head in resignation. He had to give them some credit though, they did have some guts.

Too bad he'd make the brothers see their guts before sending them to hell.

"Very well then, I didn't want it to come to this, but it seems that I have no choice." said Naruto, sighing in mock surrender.

The brothers stared at the blonde jinchuriki warily, before beginning to sweat buckets when they saw Naruto calmly stroll towards them while cracking his knuckles.

"I will systematically break every bone in your bodies, one by one, until one of you tells me the information that I want to know." threatened Naruto, with a demonic glint in his eyes.

The brothers' eyes widened in alarm, before they began to struggle futilely to free themselves from the maddened jinchuriki's clutches.

"Naruto, stop it! You don't need to go that far!" screamed Sakura, horrified by her teammate's callousness.

"Shut the fuck up, Sakura. Someone as useless as you shouldn't even think about giving me orders on protocol. Next time you collapse so pathetically on the battlefield, I will leave you to your fate." growled Naruto, while turning to the pink-haired kunoichi.

Naruto's terrifying glare immediately shut Sakura up, although she began to break out in tears from his harsh words. Snarling in disgust, the jinchuriki turned to his other teammate who gulped at being at his point of attention.

"I hope your watching closely, princess. Take some notes because this is how it's done in the real world." said Naruto.

Having said his piece, Naruto turned back to the demon brothers, before walking up to Meizu's side.

Meizu snarled at the jinchuriki, before taking advantage of Naruto's close proximity with a backhand to the face.

Unfortunately, said backhand was easily caught by the Uzumaki, who gave him a sickening grin in return.

"Aw, you're too kind Meizu. Offering me the appendage in which you want me to start with will make this much easier." said Naruto, with a bloodthirsty smile.

"Wait! Wait! Let's talk about th-AAAAGGGGHHHH!" began Meizu, before he roared in agony when Naruto clenched his palm and shattered his gauntlet in a frightening display of strength.

The bent metal dug into his skin, but the pain was exasperated when the jinchuriki mercilessly ripped the metal accessory off of his arm, leaving it bare and bloodied.

"You bastard, stop hurting my little brother! I swear, I'll kill you for this!" roared Gozu, frothing at the mouth in anger.

"You're in no position to be giving me orders, maggot. The only way you can save your brother is by telling me the information I want to know _now_." sneered Naruto, in disdain.

When Gozu hesitated, Naruto grabbed Meizu's arm and crushed the bones in his pinky finger. Meizu screamed bloody murder, and he continued to wear out his vocal cords as Naruto broke finger after finger after finger.

"Stop, please!" cried Gozu, unable to stand the sight of his brother's agony.

"Will you tell me what I want to know?" asked Naruto, pausing at Meizu's wrist.

"I… I can't…" whimpered Gozu.

"Then suffer the consequences." said Naruto, with no remorse whatsoever.

Naruto snapped Meizu's wrist and the man erupted in another episode of pain-filled howling, before Gozu finally gave in.

"Okay… OKAY! I'll tell you everything! Just stop hurting Meizu!" whimpered Gozu.

"Took you long enough. Now what were you after?" demanded Naruto, pausing his torture session once again.

"We were after him!" yelled Gozu, while pointing at Tazuna.

Tazuna gasped in horror at being found out, while Sasuke and Sakura stared at him in confusion. Naruto raised an eyebrow, before returning to the topic at hand.

"Why?" asked Naruto.

Gozu wanted to shut his mouth again, but Naruto's warning point at Meizu's forearm quickly shattered his resolve.

"We were hired by Gato of Gato Shipping Industries to kill him. Gato has taken control of Wave country by buying out all of its seaports, but the man that you are guarding wants to build a bridge to connect Wave and the mainland so they can bypass Gato's monopoly. Therefore, Zabuza, his protege, and us two were hired to take him out. Zabuza and his protege are in Wave Country, probably at Gato's base, but that's all I know! Now please, leave Meizu alone!" yelled Gozu, in a frantic rant.

Sasuke and Sakura gasped in shock at how much there was riding in their mission, while Tazuna silently cursed. Kakashi, who was currently hiding behind a tree and watching the scene, shook his head at how the old drunk had put one over Konoha like that.

Naruto nodded in acceptance at the information, before walking in between the brothers and preparing to put them out of their misery.

"Thank you for the information, this will no doubt make our mission much easier. This unfortunately, is the end for you two. Any last words?" asked Naruto, before raising his palms in front of him.

"Just… one. Who… are you?" asked Meizu, struggling at getting his message across because of the debilitating pain that he was in.

"I am Uzumaki Naruto. Remember that when you get to hell." said Naruto in monotone, before his palms began to crackle with electricity.

After a couple of seconds of lethal amounts of voltage sparking around his fingers, the jinchuriki's hands were engulfed in a haze of blinding whitish-blue lightning.

" **Raiton: Raitsume. (Lightning Release: Thunder Claw)"** chanted Naruto, before he grabbed the demon brothers by the face.

The two Kiri nuke-nin writhed uncontrollably as thousands of volts of electricity coursed through their veins from Naruto's touch. After a couple of seconds, their bodies went still and Naruto removed his hands. The jinchuriki's **Raiton** technique fried the **Oni Kyodai** completely, and smoke rose from their bodies to show the severity of the internal damage.

The two **Kage Bunshin** unceremoniously dropped their victims to the ground, before grabbing two stasis seals from the real Naruto and sealing the brothers' bodies within them. Once their tasks were complete, the **Kage Bunshin** nodded to their boss before dispelling.

"Hmph, B-rank nuke-nin my ass. I wouldn't give these tools anything higher than a mid C-ranking." snorted Naruto, before stuffing the stasis seals inside one of his pants' pockets.

It was at that time that Kakashi decided to make his appearance.

"Yo." said the silver-haired Jonin.

"What took you so long, Hatake? I've already dealt with the nuke-nin." said Naruto, evenly.

"I can see that. But, don't you think you took it a little too far?" asked Kakashi, with a sweatdrop.

"Why is that?" asked Naruto, in confusion.

Kakashi pointed to his other two students, and Naruto turned to see the shocked expressions of Sasuke and Sakura.

The two Genin were experiencing a whole myriad of emotions, they couldn't believe how their teammate could kill two Chunin level ninja without an ounce of remorse or pity.

Naruto snarled at his teammates' dumbfounded expressions, before heading towards them to give them a piece of his mind.

"Dammit you two. Wipe those looks off your faces! This is what the shinobi life is like, we are trained to kill! What? Did you think that being a shinobi would be all fun and games? That you would never have to get your hands bloodied? That you would never have to do any dirty work? You two are even more pathetic than I thought. Did you ever stop to wonder why targets at the Academy were shaped like humans? Or why the areas where vital organs would be were circled and pointed out? And if it hasn't gotten through your thick skulls, every famous ninja in history has gotten their fame by killing more people than others. Even the peace-loving Yondaime Hokage got his nickname by killing hundreds of Iwa-nin during the last Great Shinobi World War." growled Naruto, in annoyance.

"Do you think Hatake got his title of Copy-cat Ninja by just copying enemy techniques? No! He got it by copying them AND THEN turning them against his enemies and killing them. That's how legends are made, the survivors of the attacks tell others of the carnage that they witnessed, and that shinobi's fame spreads." continued Naruto, before pulling out two Bingo Books and shoving them in his teammates' hands.

"These are copies of the most recent Bingo Book. Read it all the way through, read about what some of these shinobi have done to get themselves into this book. Then you will truly understand what a shinobi really is. And if you don't, then you might as well quit right now while you still have a head atop of your shoulders." finished Naruto, before brushing past his two shocked teammates.

Kakashi held a look of sadness in his eye as he watched Naruto stalk after Tazuna. But he knew that what the Uzumaki had said was absolutely true.

" _They really should start teaching that stuff in the Academy. If they did, then the Genin mortality rate wouldn't be so damn high."_ thought Kakashi.

"Alright old man, you've got some explaining to do. Why would you lie about a mission?" asked Naruto, with a growl.

The Uzumaki wasn't necessarily pissed about there being an enemy encounter during the mission, for he relished battle. Naruto was just annoyed that the man tried to skimp on payment for an A-rank difficulty mission.

Naruto valued time and effort above all else, and therefore he expected to be compensated adequately for when he did things for people.

"You're absolutely right, I owe you guys an explanation and an apology for pulling one over you like that. As you heard from the **Oni Kyodai** , Gato has sent mercenaries after me because I'm trying to undercut his shipping monopoly. Ever since Gato has taken over, Wave has become extremely poor and we don't have the resources to cover anything higher in difficulty than C-rank." said Tazuna, in resignation.

"That's fine and all, but why didn't you come clean to the Hokage and explain to him about your dilemma? All shinobi aren't heartless you know, we could have easily worked something out. However, according to the circumstances, we are fully within our rights as of now to abandon the mission." questioned Kakashi, sternly.

"I understand your anger completely, but I beg of you to complete the mission. Wave might be poor as of now, but once I finish the bridge and our trading activity resumes, everything will be back to normal. Then, I'll make sure to pay for the actual difficulty level AND a bonus for all the trouble I've caused. Please! If not for me, do it for the benefit of my people!" pleaded Tazuna, who was on his knees by this point.

Kakashi sighed at the bridge builder's begging, before giving his response.

"It is not my decision alone. My team will have to agree on a course of action." conceded Kakashi.

The blonde-haired Uzumaki scoffed at his sensei's reply, however.

"Come on Hatake, if the kiddies want to run with their tails between their legs, then let them. But I'm staying, whether you like it or not." said Naruto.

Kakashi's eye narrowed at his student's response.

"And why do you care so much?" asked Kakashi.

"I don't really care at all about the plight of Wave. However, I am looking forward to an exhilarating fight, which is what we'll encounter if we continue onward. The chance to fight against a former member of the **Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shu** (Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist) is an opportunity that I will not pass up, especially as a blade-wielder." answered Naruto.

Kakashi just shook his head at the blonde's answer.

" _Just like Itachi."_ thought Kakashi, with a weary sigh.

"So, what will you do? Will you stay, or will you turn back?" asked Kakashi, while turning to his other two students.

Sasuke growled at Naruto's casual dismissal of his resolve to fight, before giving his answer.

"If the dobe can do it, then I can as well." said Sasuke, with an arrogant smirk.

Sakura snuck a glance at Sasuke and Naruto, while thinking, " _I can't run away from this! I'll show you, Naruto! I'll show everyone that I'm not useless or pathetic!"_

"I'm with them, we'll continue the mission." said Sakura, while turning to her sensei with newfound determination.

Kakashi nodded at his pink-haired student, before smiling under his mask.

" _Naruto, you're methods may be questionable, but you get results. And in the shinobi world, the ends justify the means."_ thought Kakashi.

"Looks like today is your lucky day. We'll stay and continue the mission." said Kakashi, with an eye smile.

"You will? Thank you! Thank you all so much! You have no idea what this means to me, to my entire country!" yelled Tazuna in sheer gratitude, before shaking Kakashi's hand eagerly.

With all that said and done, the group began to travel once again. Along the way, Naruto walked up to Sakura.

"Well Haruno, you've taken the first step and have overcome your doubts. But can you overcome your fears, your insecurities? Can you come face to face with death itself and walk away alive? Can you become a true shinobi? Personally, I think not. But, maybe you can prove me wrong." muttered Naruto.

The pink-haired kunoichi jumped slightly when she first heard Naruto's voice beside her, but not nearly as much as she used to. She was slowly getting used to her dark teammate's habits.

"I will prove you wrong. I will become a true ninja. And one day, I'll rub your face in it!" said Sakura, with determination burning in her eyes.

"Hmph, that'll be the day hell freezes over. But. at least you're on the right path. Don't screw up, Haruno." said Naruto, before walking up to Kakashi.

"What's up, Naruto?" asked the silver-haired Jonin, who didn't even bother to look up from his porn.

Despite his nonchalant attitude however, Kakashi was unnerved terribly by the fact that he could barely even sense Naruto's presence, even though the pre-teen was only about half a foot away. It was like the Uzumaki was a ghost or something.

"It seems that I was right, Hatake." said Naruto.

"About what?" asked Kakashi.

"That we would encounter B-ranked shinobi, even though they were pushovers." said Naruto.

"Hm, you did say that didn't you. Don't tell me that I have to add psychic abilities to your profile." said Kakashi, with a chuckle.

"Hmph, don't flatter me Hatake. I can't predict the future anymore than you can, instead I just assume the worst-case scenario and then work from there." snorted Naruto.

"Oh yeah, the whole two S-rank missing-nin spiel you said last night. In hindsight, it was a pretty ridiculous notion." said Kakashi.

"Yeah, that was a little far-fetched. However, an A-rank nuke-nin like Zabuza will be a perfect test of my abilities. I hope he lives up to all the hype he's given in the Bingo Book." said Naruto, with anticipation.

Kakashi frowned at Naruto's disregard of danger. The Uzumaki was strong no doubt, but his arrogance was going to cost him sooner or later, like it did a lot of people.

Him included, as well.

"You're getting overconfident." said Kakashi, warningly.

"How can I be getting overconfident, when I don't even know the extent of my abilities? I have too many limitations in Konoha, too many rules and stipulations." said Naruto, with a shrug.

"You do realize that even though you beat me in our fight, I held back a good deal because I couldn't fight to kill." said Kakashi, trying to get his point across.

"Could've fooled me, Hatake. Don't kid yourself, the only technique you held back on was your famed **Raikiri** and you know as well as I do that it would have been one hell of a struggle to even nick me with it. Besides, even if I was hit, because of my status as a jinchuriki you know that I possess advanced healing capabilities. I on the other hand, withheld myself from using two of my three nature affinities, and any combat fuinjutsu." said Naruto, with a raised eyebrow.

Kakashi sighed in resigned aggravation, but he didn't say anymore. Words obviously had no effect on the blonde-haired Uzumaki, so he would just have to learn the hard way. Hopefully, he wouldn't die or suffer a debilitating injury in the process.

" **Check, and mate."** said Kurama in response to Kakashi's silence, to which Naruto agreed.

* * *

"Alright Tazuna, this is as far as I go." said the boatman, who had ferried the group of five across the ocean to the island nation of Wave.

"Thanks old friend. You take care of yourself, you hear?" said Tazuna.

Team Seven and their client were now in Wave Country and there still hadn't been any attacks, although Naruto and Kakashi expected one anytime soon. It was after all, best to attack someone when they were in unfamiliar territory.

Naruto was paying attention to his surroundings very carefully, while thinking that things were going way too easily. Most of his attention however, was on sensing any killing intent at all. His childhood had made him extremely sensitive to it, as he had been the target of a lot of it all his life.

Though in hindsight, the killing intent of the average civilian was quite pathetic, it had proven useful to attuning him to such things. The suppressed killing intent of a trained shinobi wasn't that different from a non-combatant.

That's when he sensed it however, a very faint killing intent coming from the bushes. Purely on instinct, he acquired a kunai from his forearm guard storage seal and flung the projectile into the bush.

Almost immediately, the killing intent vanished which caused the jinchuriki's eyes to narrow in suspicion.

A cute, but terrified squeaking sound revealed that he had nearly sunk the kunai into the head of a white snow rabbit. Naruto ignored Sakura's chastisement about frightening the poor animal for he was utterly certain that it wasn't the rabbit who had been the source of the faint killing intent.

" _That rabbit shouldn't have a white coat at this time of year, meaning that it's been raised indoors."_ thought Kakashi, in realization.

"GET DOWN!" yelled the silver-haired Jonin.

Sasuke instantly obeyed, Naruto kicked Sakura's legs out from under her before he flung himself down as well, and Kakashi tackled the bridge builder. It was all done just in time, for a giant cleaver sword spun through the air where they were standing just moments before.

The massive sword implanted itself into a tree, and a tall, shirtless man with a leather strap over his chest suddenly appeared on the long hilt of the blade. The enemy shinobi was wearing camouflage patterned arm and leg warmers, a scratched through Kirigakure forehead protector that identified him as a missing-nin, and he was distinctly missing eyebrows for some odd reason as well as having the lower half of his face wrapped in bandages, creating a similar effect as Kakashi's mask.

"Momochi Zabuza, the **Kirigakure no Kijin** (Demon of the Hidden Mist)." stated Kakashi, identifying the newcomer.

"Sharingan no Kakashi, the famous Copy Ninja of Konohagakure." said Zabuza, slightly amused.

Kakashi quickly raised his hitai-ate, revealing his matured Sharingan.

"Ahh, you're bringing out the famous Sharingan so soon? I'm honored, but this doesn't have to get bloody. Hand over the old man and none of your little brats have to get hurt." said Zabuza, mockingly.

"Stay out of this, I'll fight him. And Naruto so help me, if you disobey me this one time, I'll pull rank when we get back to Konoha and have you court-martialed." said Kakashi, with an annoyed glare being pointed at his blonde-haired student.

"Tch, fine you greedy bastard. Excuse me for wanting to have some fun." groused Naruto, in a defeated tone.

With that dealt with, the silver-haired Jonin turned his attention back to his Mist nuke-nin adversary.

"Well if you won't give up, then there's only one way that this will end." said Zabuza, readying his sword.

"You can try, but it won't be easy. That I can assure you." said Kakashi, before slipping into a fighting stance.

" **Ninpo: Kirigakure no Jutsu. (Ninja Art: Hidden Mist Technique)"** chanted Zabuza, while holding a one-handed seal.

A dense cover of mist formed around the area rapidly, obscuring sight and making Kakashi a great deal more wary, as his Sharingan was useless if he couldn't see.

"Everyone, whatever you do, do not lower your guard. Zabuza is a master of the Silent Killing technique." warned Kakashi.

"Silent Killing?" asked Sakura, nervously.

"As the name suggests, users of the technique are able to kill their opponents without a sound. Most of the time, the target is dead before they even realize it." explained Kakashi warily, while looking around for a glimpse of the Mist nuke-nin.

Naruto was trying to pinpoint Zabuza's position by the feel of the man's killing intent, but he wasn't having any luck, as it seemed to be coming from several directions and even then he could only get a general location. The Uzumaki ignored the swordsman's little speech about the eight points in the body that he could strike for a lethal blow, as he knew that the man was just doing it to freak them out.

Kakashi then used a chakra burst to disperse the mist, making the jinchuriki wonder why he hadn't thought of that. The rising pressure of the killing intent being tossed around by the two Jonin was considerable and Naruto could see that it was getting to Sasuke, as the Uchiha survivor looked like he was about to kill himself. The only reason it wasn't getting to Sakura and Tazuna was because they weren't attuned enough to feel it, although if it was directed at them they probably would have been reduced to vegetative states.

"Sasuke, calm down. I won't let my comrades die, I'll protect all of you." said Kakashi, breaking the Uchiha out of his panic episode.

Immediately after that, Naruto sensed the enemy's presence in the middle of their formation. Moving quickly, the jinchuriki drew one of his katana and stabbed it into Zabuza's forehead, only for the man to turn into a puddle of water.

"Looks like you've got a fast one there." commented Zabuza, not letting on the fact that the blonde's action had thwarted his plan to attack Kakashi.

Zabuza decided to reconsider his opinion on the blonde Genin, after that display of battle competency. The blonde was bigger, looked meaner, and was better equipped than the other two Genin, but when Kakashi had told them to stay out of the fight, he had dismissed them as inconsequential. But with that speedy disposal of his water clone, Zabuza realized that he needed to keep the blonde from joining the fight or else this could turn out badly in his favor.

Kakashi had pinpointed the location of the voice when Zabuza had spoken this time and immediately rushed at it, ramming his kunai into the surprised man's abdomen.

Only for the nuke-nin to dissolve into another puddle of water and for another Zabuza to re-appear behind him, already swinging his sword to cleave him in half. Having no time to dodge, Kakashi was cut in half, but he too dissolved into water.

A half-second later, Zabuza felt a kunai on his neck from a re-appearing Kakashi.

"It's over, Zabuza." stated Kakashi, confidently.

"Yes, it is." said another voice, which tipped off Kakashi to the notion that something was wrong.

The silver-haired Jonin ducked hastily and stabbed the Zabuza in front of him for good measure, and the fact that water leaked out of the wound and a sword swung over his head was an indication that his maneuver was wisely played.

Zabuza proved to have great mastery of his sword however, and as the missed swing sank into the ground, instead of trying to pull it out of the ground, he used to sword as extra leverage to kick the silver-haired Jonin into the lake.

Kakashi was finding it extremely difficult to get out of the water, as it was unusually heavy. He just processed the fact that being in the water while fighting a **Suiton** specialist was a bad idea, when all of a sudden he was encased in a sphere of water.

" **Suiton: Suiro no Jutsu. (Water Release: Water Prison Technique)"** said Zabuza, with a smirk.

" _Shit!"_ thought Kakashi, in alarm.

"It might be a prison of water, but it's stronger than steel. You won't be escaping from here anytime soon and now all I have to do is get rid of that blonde and those two brats of yours." said Zabuza, boastfully.

After his initial reaction of surprise and worry however, Kakashi's features morphed into his own smirk and he began to chuckle.

"What's so funny, Copycat?" asked Zabuza, frowning.

"It's just that your problems have gotten a whole lot worse." gloated Kakashi, his smile widening.

"What the hell are you talking ab-" began Zabuza, before he was brutally cut off by a chakra-enhanced fist slamming into his face with a sickening crunch.

The Kiri nuke-nin was sent flying across the water, skipping and bouncing like a stone that was thrown across a pond. After about ten skips, the bandage-masked Jonin was able to regain his bearings and flip in mid-air to land on his feet, skidding to a stop across the lake's surface.

Zabuza looked up and glared at the audacious brat who had slugged him. Then, said brat released the inhibitors on his chakra reserves and was engulfed in a wild aura of blue chakra, while his features took on that of a feral animal.

" _Wha… what the fuck?! This guy… what kind of monster is he?"_ thought Zabuza in shock, as he felt the full force of Naruto's power.

Naruto strolled up to Kakashi, who was crouching on the water surface and gasping for air, while keeping his eyes on Zabuza. Regardless, he couldn't resist the temptation of getting some snide remarks in.

"If you're done embarrassing yourself, Hatake. I will take over this battle now. Seriously though, you should start training again because it seems that you've gotten even weaker from when we fought." mocked Naruto, before unsheathing both his katanas which gleamed in the sunlight.

The silver-haired Jonin shrugged, brushing off the insults before responding.

"He's all yours. Though you are right, I need to get back to training. I'm getting rusty." said Kakashi, nonchalantly.

Naruto simply nodded, before cracking his neck as his fearsome power caused the water beneath him to splash wildly and the air around him to whip around ferociously. After a couple of seconds, Naruto **Shunshin** ed forward, appearing before Zabuza in the blink of an eye.

Kakashi on the other hand, walked back to his students and client. Sasuke glared at the Uzumaki, seething at being upstaged once again, Tazuna gaped in amazement, and Sakura looked worried. Even though she didn't have a very good opinion of the blond, she was still worried about the well-being of a teammate.

"Sensei, what are you doing? We have to help him, he could get killed!" worried Sakura.

"Don't worry, he can take care of himself." said Kakashi, waving off the kunoichi's concerns.

Zabuza wearily stood and took a defensive stance. That punch had hurt like a bitch, and he was still reeling from it. Whoever this boy was, he was on a completely different level. Kakashi had nothing on this kid, and seeing how easily the silver-haired Jonin had handed the reins to this kid it was safe to say that the man had confidence in his skill as well.

"Momochi Zabuza, A-rank nuke-nin from Kirigakure and former member of the **Kiri no Shinobigatana Shichinin Shu** it is an honor to meet you. Unfortunately, you will die here today by my hand, the same as the **Oni Kyodai**." stated Naruto, stoically.

"Listen here you little brat, I don't care who the hell you think you are, but you have no chance of matching me." growled Zabuza, regaining his poise and arrogance.

"... I thought that was obvious. I'm already stronger than you." said Naruto, with a raised eyebrow.

"Pretty big words for a no-name punk. But this is the major leagues kid, you're outclassed." snarled Zabuza, while clenching his fists.

"Pretty big words for a lightweight bitch who was sent flying by a 'weak' punch. Now enough talk, come **Kirigakure no Kijin**! Fight Konoha's Resident Demon Child, and we shall see who is most deserving of their title." retorted Naruto, before charging forward.

* * *

Author's Note: Aww! Cliffhanger, once again. I should let you guys know that I love to utilize cliffhangers and will continue to do so throughout the entire story so don't bother trying to change my mind. Moving on, next chapter will be Naruto vs. Zabuza, however don't expect a chapter long fight between these two, it'll be lengthy an descriptive but not on the scale of Naruto vs. Kakashi. Until next time.


	6. Apologies

**Apologies**

 **Hello readers, this is Nwandu225. I first and foremost want to apologize to my followers for my long absence from writing, it came abruptly and I gave no warning. Anyway, there were a few reasons why I was gone for so long. First of all, the long and terrible hell that is the college application process. I'm currently a senior in high school (I turned 18 in January) and for the past year or so I've been "facing my books" as my Nigerian parents say, so I could get good test scores on my standardized tests, at the end of it all I took 2 Old SATs, 2 ACTs, and 6 SAT subject tests (US History (1), Chemistry (1), Math I (1), and Physics (3)). It sucked a lot, but now I've finished all of that and turned in my college applications on Common App. I'm looking to go into Operations Research and Financial Engineering and I applied to a couple of Ivy Leagues so cross your fingers for me!**

 **The next reason was that I wanted to take a break from writing to improve my skills and storytelling, so I spent all of my "free time" (I say this quotations because there wasn't a lot) from last school year until now reading as much as I could and learning from the better writers on the site as well as planning out a story that I would eventually write, tweaking it here and there. As you can see with my track history, I have the problem of starting a story and stopping because I run out of interesting ideas and therefore inspiration. But now that has changed as the story I am now writing has been planned out pretty thoroughly and a couple of my close friends are helping me with ideas and editing, so I should be good with getting a lot of content out. To those who are currently following this fanfic and my other older stories, I'm sorry to tell you that I'm dropping them all. But don't fret, my new fanfic is heavily inspired by my two most recent stories (Wrath of an Insurgent Dragon Slayer and Uzumaki Naruto: Jinchuriki of the Cataclysms) and takes a lot of ideas and themes from them. So if you loved those two stories, my newest one will have most of the things you liked in it.**

 **Fair warning, my new story is a Naruto/Fairy Tail Crossover, but to those don't feel interested I ask you to give it a chance. My writing skills have improved tremendously from when I stopped writing to now, and I promise you that it's superior to whatever I've written in the past. It's also much, much longer, the story content reaching over 12,000 words long, which is almost double what my longest chapter prior this is. I plan on making A LOT of changes to the Naruto and Fairy Tail Universes, most of the changes occurring in the FT-verse due to the fact that its the main setting of the story. I also plan on introducing OCs (If you've read my Fairy Tail fanfics, you know that's common for me) but the overall main characters will be Naruto and Sasuke. So please, check it out and review, it helps me progress so much as a writer. As for my update schedule, I'm going to try (emphasis on the word try) to update biweekly or every two weeks. I'll tweak this promise in future as I learn what I can handle.**

 **Thank you for your patience and I hope to hear from you in a review in my newest fanfic: Catastrophe**


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